Video Game / Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna ~ The Golden Country

All spoilers for the main game of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!

"I'll keep you safe, always..."

"In the course of a lifetime, a man will see uncountable meetings and partings. Yet, as your life's candle sputters and dies, whose face is it that rises to greet you? Happy is the man who can sleep, in the comfort of the smile he sees then."

— Jin

Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna ~ The Golden Country is the Prequel Expansion Pack to Xenoblade Chronicles 2, part of the Xenoblade Chronicles series. It was developed by Monolith Soft and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo Switch in September 2018.

The expansion covers the Aegis War 500 years prior to the events of the main game and includes an explorable Torna, a titan that was only mentioned in the base game, overhauled combat including the ability to directly control Blades and the return of Talent Arts from the original Xenoblade Chronicles 1, and many other quality-of-life changes to the imported game mechanics.

You can watch the trailer for Torna ~ The Golden Country here.

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Don't forget these tropes:

• Anti-Frustration Features: Several changes made to the expansion improve upon the main game's systems.
  • Collection points now display what their primary drops are so players know what relevant Field Skills to have ready.
  • Collection points now deploy their items immediately rather than waiting a moment, and Field Skills that multiply their drops also play the event noticeably more quickly. It's a small change, but very noticeable when you're picking up a lot of collection points.
  • Gravestones of defeated Unique Monsters now appear on the map and minimap.
  • Aux Cores are now equippable upon collection and no longer need refinement.
  • Because your party Blades are set this time around and you can only change the element of the Driver, Blade Combos can be done with any element in any order instead of the combo paths in the main game. Though the original Combos are still there, and stronger than the "generic" combos you can use, they're barely indicated in the combat UI, the stages of the old combos have their old names instead of a generic "[element] II/III" name, leading them to mostly be a bonus for those who remember the ins and outs of the original game and/or notice the name thing.
• Anti-Villain: In a twist compared to the series's previous variants on this quest, you get to bust another Nopon drug smuggling ring, headed by Morumo the market chairman... who turns out to have mostly good intentions (he wanted the money as a massive investment fund for the sake of Torna's merchants), gets so remorseful he actually attempts to jump off a roof, and spends the rest of his appearances trying to atone for his mistakes.
• Anyone Can Die: Hugo and Milton both die during the final boss battle, the former's death also leading to the effective deaths of Brighid and Aegaeon's current incarnations, and after the credits Lora's and Haze's current incarnation's deaths are implied. In addition all of Torna gets destroyed, and with it most of the population aside from anyone who could get off, and even among those refugees some of them get slaughtered by Amalthus' forces.
• Artifact Title: The Hard difficulty on New Game Plus is still called "Bringer of Chaos" despite Zeke, or even Tantal in general, being absent from the game.
• Ascended Extra:
  • Lora, an exaggerated example, ascends from her Small Role, Big Impact in the main game to the Decoy Protagonist and Deuteragonist of the expansion.
  • Aegaeon lacks any meaningful presence in the main game aside from guarding Emperor Niall. Here, he is one of the core party members who participated in taking down Malos 500 years ago and is one of the party's three main cooks; the others being Jin and Mythra.
  • Haze was an NPC, albeit an important one, for one chapter in the main game. She's a playable character in this DLC.
  • Gort, the man who stole Jin's Core Crystal and tried to kill Lora when she resonated, is a minor antagonist and boss at the start of the game. He returns at the very end as the Post-Final Boss, to boot.
  • Lora's mother appeared in only one cutscene with one line in the main game and was never mentioned again after that. Lora begins the expansion searching for her. After Addam & Mythra join up, they find her grave in Torigoth, having died in a bandit raid.
  • Jin's Driver before Lora, Ornelia, was only mentioned by name once in a flashback in the original game. Here, that flashback sequence is expanded on to include a picture of what she looked like, and she also happened to know Azurda and traveled around on his back during her adventures.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Malos asks for Mythra to use her full power, and forces it out for her by attacking Auresco, which is where Mikhail and Milton were. This almost ends up killing Malos but the main game shows he is alive, just very underpowered thanks to the damage Mythra inflicted.
• Big Damn Heroes: Emphasis on the big. After going the entire game without a single sight or mention of it, Ophion shows up for the final battle, annihilating scores of Malos' artifices with ease. Mythra even lampshades that she intended to surprise him with it. Unfortunately Malos had a surprise of his own with more artifices hidden in the cloud sea, which he has suicide bomb Ophion into defeat.
• Broken Bridge: Torna has a few literal ones. The ones in Lasaria are mostly here to teach how Field Skills work, but the broken Lett Bridge is as straight an example as it gets, requiring you to complete a few Fetch Quests before it's finally repaired. And then there's the smoking crater where Lora and Addam first meet, which used to be a staircase going up the cliff to what is not only a direct path to Auresco, but also right next to the final areas of the game. That one never gets fixed, though you can later drop down the cliff as a shortcut once you get access to the Dannagh region.
• Call-Forward:
  • Krogane, the Blade of the Nopon Driver Rolipoli, and the Quest Giver for the Blade Combo tutorial side quests, is one of the many Common Blades you can awaken in the main game.
  • One of the sidequests centers around a fledgling Driver named Lyta and her Blade, who throughout their adventures end up giving several landmarks the names they have by the time Rex's party comes along, starting of course with Lyta's Oasis in Gormott.
  • The Bloody Lobsters gang from Perceval's quests is already around (and was apparently created in Coeia). One quest revolves around finding their deadliest assassin of the time hiding in Auresco, who turns out to be Gio the ever-helpful handyman, trying to turn a page after one murder too many.
  • There's one for the first game. Mythra's Roaring Rampage of Revenge against Malos for bombing Auresco is very similar to Shulk's anger at Fiora's supposed death by Metal Face.
  • Some of the dialogue in Auesco discusses the ongoing construction of the Monoceros.
• Can't Live Without You: Your characters consists of three teams of three, each team sharing one health pool amongst their members. If their HP reaches zero then that entire team is down for the count.
• Chronic Hero Syndrome: The entire team (except for the relatively misanthropic Mythra) has a really bad case of it. It's a key part of Addam's popularity with his people, and Lora is later knighted with the explicit mission of being a shining beacon of hope and kindness for Torna. It gets constantly lampshaded, too, from Mythra's endless complaints about it to the party slowly growing a reputation as "those guys who help everyone in town". Some parts of the story won't even let you progress at all unless you complete large amounts of sidequests. Which of course makes it that much tougher when most of what you've worked so hard for goes down in flames with the rest of Torna.
• Critical Hit Class:
  • Mythra's strength comes from landing critical hits. Her Glint skill passively increases her critical hit rate, and her Lightspeed Flurry skill increases the recharge rate for Arts and Specials when she lands a critical hit. Her Lightning Buster Art deals out increased critical hit damage, and all of her Specials, aside from Chroma Dust, inflict multiple hits, giving more chances for recharging Arts and Specials while also possessing increased chances of critical hits. Terminal Flash and Hadron Impact both inflict increased critical hit damage as well. Addam uses greatswords which give both of them an increased critical hit rate, and with the right core chip, almost every attack Mythra lands will be a critical hit. Setting up a Crit-Heal strategy on Mythra with Addam equipping an accessory that causes a percentage of critical hit damage to be recovered as health means she can often deal damage faster than an enemy can inflict it.
  • While Jin is not focused on landing critical hits, he does have a higher critical hit rate than Mythra, not counting the boost she gets from Adam's weapon accessory, and his Mind Eye's skill increases the damage of all his critical hits. Combined with his already absurd damage due to his other skills increasing his damage output, the Crit-Heal strategy on him is as viable as it is on Mythra.
• Culture Clash: In the militia, between the Mildly Military Tornans and the much stricter Mor Ardainians. This becomes particularly evident when an NPC is caught stealing food, and the Tornan officers treat it as a joke, while the Mor Ardainians are literally ready to hang the culprit.
• Damager, Healer, Tank: This time around there are no Core Crystals in the game's mechanics, so the roles are more defined among the three Drivers:
  • Addam is the Damager.
  • Lora, having the only healing blade, Haze, is the Healer. Although she has damage capabilities herself with Jin.
  • Hugo, like his descendant Mòrag, is the party's tank with his defense and aggro Arts.
• Darker and Edgier: Than the main story. It features a bleak and dark Downer Ending, and most of the characters die. While there are funny moments, Malos proves to be an effective Knight of Cerebus when he attacks Torna.
• A Day in the Limelight:
  • For Lora. While her relationship to Jin is pivotal to his character, her appearances in the main game are only in small flashbacks and a frozen corpse in present time.
  • Jin himself was a major villain in the base game and only briefly available as a Guest-Star Party Member, but is one of the two main characters in this expansion along with his Driver, Lora. The game focuses on his past with Lora and fleshes out his backstory until the endgame where the focus switches to the conflict between Mythra and Malos. The save game icon even depicts Jin rather than his Driver as the base game did with Rex!
  • Also applies to the Aegis War, which is when the expansion takes place, and Addam who's become Famed In-Story by the events of the main game.
• Decoy Protagonist: Lora is presented as the game's central character, but her personal arc is resolved very early on during the story and for the rest of the game she's mostly there for the sake of Jin's development.
• Demoted to Extra: Played with. The game gives off the impression that Mythra, one of the deuteragonists of the main game, isn't as pivotal to the overall story,^note if still a member of the main team, kinda like Nia in the base game, but this turns out not to be the case as the game's focus shifts to her whenever Malos appears.
• Developing Doomed Characters: This game is a rare example of the trope being pulled off as intended. Between Lora, Hugo, Milton, Brighid and Aegaeon's current incarnations and all the sidequests you do (many of which are necessary to complete the game), the game develops plenty of Sacrificial Lambs and even Sacrificial Lions, adding extra impact to the Gut Punch that is the ending.
• Distant Prequel: Takes place around 500 years prior to Xenoblade Chronicles 2 proper.
• Doomed by Canon: Aside from everyone on Torna who couldn't escape, there are specific characters that bite the dust, one way or another:
  • Lora is killed by Amalthus's attack, breaking Jin in the process and leaving Haze's Core Crystal to fall into the Praetorum's hands. On the bright side, anyone who's played the main game will know that Jin eventually finishes off Amalthus, though he dies in the process.
  • It's unknown how exactly Mikhail got separated from Lora and Jin, but he ends up becoming a Blade Eater after being taken to Indol before escaping, and he takes down Indol with him later in the main game. Though if that game's New Game Plus were to tell, he actually manages to survive.
• Downer Ending: Even given the Foregone Conclusions, the ending is incredibly bleak. The battle between Mythra and Malos destroys Torna, with the latter's attack on Auresco killing Milton. The explosion of Torna's core causes Hugo to perform a Heroic Sacrifice, which takes his Blades with him. Mythra undergoes a massive breakdown when she realizes what happened, and she (now Pyra) and Addam go off to ultimately disappear. Lora, Jin, and Haze end up killing a hideously mutated Gort before Amalthus, having killed his superiors to become Praetor, launches the attack that kills Lora (and Haze by extension) and leaves Jin a broken man. The only bright spot is the last scene, where Rex arrives on the ship to wake up Pyra.
• Dramatic Irony: Milton agrees to stay behind in Auresco only after Mythra convinces him that she and the others will be able to fight more effectively if he isn't around to worry about. Of course, being in Auresco is what ends up getting Milton killed, and Mythra is all too aware that she was the one who convinced him to stay there.
• Everybody's Dead, Dave: By the end of the game due to Torna's destruction and Amalthus' attack only Mikhail, Mythra, Jin, Cole/Minoth and Addam are alive out of the main group.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: We finally get to see more of Torna's Japanese aesthetics beyond just their armor in the main game. The Torna Capital, Auresco, features a Xeno-style take on classical Japanese architecture and even rock gardens.
• Foregone Conclusion: Malos will be beaten but not slain, Torna will be destroyed with its survivors moving to Tantal, Addam and Mythra will go into self-imposed exile, Amalthus will become Praetor and begin eating Blades, and Lora will end up as a frozen corpse, spurring Jin's Face–Heel Turn.
• Foreshadowing: Many, many examples, both for events that occur in this game and the main game.
  • Hugo tells the rest of the group that the purpose of the Special Inquisitor with him is to recover Brighid and Aegaeon's Core Crystals if he falls in battle. After he dies saving Addam's life, their Core Crystals end up getting returned to him.
  • Toward the end of the game Jin intuits that the bond Mythra is looking for won't be found in Addam or the present world but in her future. True enough, Mythra outright gets visions of meeting Rex just as she is about to unleash all her power upon Alrest and possibly destroy it all, said vision being enough for her to get herself back under control, though the accumulated energy is still released and causes much devastation.
• Gameplay and Story Integration:
  • At the start of the game, only Lora is capable of pulling off Level 4 specials where Driver and Blade constantly pass each other their weapon. After all, she pretty much invented what would become a staple of Blade combat by the time of the original game.
  • Thanks to the updated gameplay mechanics Blades are now much more directly involved in battles, performing not just buffs and specials but regular attacks, as well as being able to be targeted by enemies (though not when in the rearguard position). This arrangement (minus immunity when in the rearguard) is present in cut scenes in both games and is often important to the events in the story, but didn't apply to actual gameplay in the main game outside of battles where a Blade's driver was not present.
  • After discovering Torigoth has been burned to the ground and Lora's mother killed, Lora will be somberly silent when you use collection points in the area, instead of giving her usual cheery remarks.
  • Once Lora officially becomes a knight of Torna, Jin takes off his mask. Not only from his model, but also his menu screen, and even the Save icon. Lora's medal also permanently appears on her model.
  • Mythra's final, hardest to acquire skill, requires a maxed out Community level. It's a single level of Girls' Talk. The game itself points out that it does absolutely nothing, but it symbolizes her Character Development rather nicely, showing her finally getting off her high horse after meeting so many people. Speaking of, all of her field skills match the ones that she has in the main game, whereas other familiar blades such as Brighid and Aegaeon have different ones. This is because Mythra's consciousness hasn't been compromised in between the two stories while Brighid and Aegaeon are both reverted to core crystals upon Hugo's death in the finale.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • Equipping Mythra with the Massive Melee Mythra outfit will have her core missing the X-shaped piece that is given to Rex in the main game, even though this is set centuries before it.
  • In the New Game Plus mode, you have the entire party available for the entire play-through, no matter who is supposed to be in your party story-wise. Especially jarring when Hugo and Milton die and you are still able to use Hugo and his Blades in the battle against Gort, with the final game save still listing Milton in the party.
  • Mythra expresses disappointment and annoyance when you do side quests, despite this Addam still gains Trust with her when they are completed.
• Gory Discretion Shot: Partway through the Gormott arc, Jin cuts off both of Gort's arms, with only a shot of his prosthetic arm flying off. After that, the camera avoids showing his freshly cut stump. Indeed it avoids showing his lack of arms at all, using continuous close ups as he runs.
• Gut Punch: The ending. If you played through the main game before this one, you knew it would be bad, just not how bad. It really hits home when you see Mikhail holding the dead body of Milton — the Cheerful Child, Tagalong Kid, and Comic Relief — traumatizing Mythra and leading to Pyra's creation. Mercifully, Lora's death scene was omitted. To twist the knife, just before the final fight, if you talk to the NPCs, they will assure you that they have every confidence that you will beat the Big Bad and save them all. This is typical for most JRPGs; however, unlike almost every one of those games, this is one game where you will fail utterly.
• Hope Spot: The end of game shows Lora, Jin, Haze, and Mikhail in good spirits and cheer as they find the militia camp....only to cut to the impending army coming to wipe them out.
• If We Get Through This…: Different characters make plans on what to do after they've succeeded in defeating Malos. Addam plans to take up farming, settling down with his wife and child, while Lora plans to set up an orphanage for children orphaned by the wars.
• Item Crafting: Your three main Drivers and six main Blades all can craft pouch items while resting at campfires.
  • Jin, Mythra, and Aegaeon cook meals.
  • Lora crafts charms.
  • Haze crafts talismans.
  • Addam and Hugo craft replica artifacts, which replace shop deeds by providing permanent minor buffs to exploration.
  • Brighid crafts cosmetics.
  • Minoth crafts drama literature.
• Jerkass Has a Point: invokedMythra is primarily presented as bratty and unreasonable compared to her modern counterpart, but she's the only one in the party who correctly points out that Kaym and Bry's "reconciliation" isn't exactly an ideal outcome, whereas the others (particularly Haze) see it as a happy ending.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler:
  • Malos being an Aegis was a major reveal in chapter 4 of the main game, but here, it's not that much of an issue as it's mentioned right at the opening. The fact that his weapon is a Monado is also spoiled by the game's description on its standalone release Nintendo eShop page.
  • Jin is revealed to be a Blade early on, though it's a bit more merciful that he becomes a Flesh Eater at the end.
  • In the main game, Amalthus' nature was kept ambiguous for some time; here, his villainy is revealed to the player, and — shortly afterward — to the characters, relatively early.
• Late to the Tragedy: The game starts with Lora finding out that her missing mum is in Torigoth, only for the village to be massacred and razed to the ground long before they get there.
• Loyalty Mission: The group's detour to Gormott has nothing to do with the battle against Malos and serves only to tie up a major loose end in Lora's life before she can focus on the Aegis in full.
• Meaningful Echo: "I don't wish for 'forever.' All I want is my life with her. That's plenty." Both times said by Jin to Azurda. The first time, it simply showed his devotion to Lora. The second time, during the epilogue, instead showed that his life had no meaning anymore after she was killed.
• Mildly Military: The Tornan forces the party meets are oddly informal for a fighting force, especially from a country based on Japan at the height of it's warrior culture. The reason for this is because the true form of the Titan they live on is a really damn huge Telethia that is basically unstoppable by anything short of the two Aegises. They don't NEED the humans to fight when they have that.
• Misplaced Wildlife: Malos's destructive shenanigans are actively affecting the ecosystem, causing mass displacement of monster populations. A boss fight and some sidequests are dedicated to dealing with Leftherian wildlife invading Torna.
• My Friends... and Zoidberg: On sidequests, characters will usually end up thanking Lora and sometimes Addam specifically while treating the other party members as this.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Talent Arts from the original Xenoblade Chronicles 1 makes a return.
  • Being a retelling of the Shevat-Solaris Wars from Xenogears, many characters are Expies of ones from that game, with Jin being one for Lacan/Grahf, Malos being one for Miang/Myyah, and Amalthus being one for Krelian.
  • Addam's father's design is visually based on Fei's father Khan Wong. And Addam's Japanese name "Adel" is one letter off from "Abel" - fitting for the predecessor of the main game's protagonist.
  • The Addam/Fei Fong Wong parallels go even further; Just like how Fei losing control of Weltall results in the destruction of Lahan Village, Addam's inability to control Mythra when she loses herself in rage and grief resulted in the Tornan Titan being destroyed.
• Nested Mouths: Gort's Post-Final Boss form has his original face inside his new body's mouth.
• Nostalgia Level: For those who played the main game first, Gormott is this. It features new enemy spawns, updated visuals, and new geography since Torigoth as we know it didn't exist then.
• One-Winged Angel: Gort is turned into a monstrosity sometime after his first boss fight, with his new form being the Post-Final Boss.
• Our Dragons Are Different: The Tornan Titan is a massive dragon that looks exactly like a Telethia. It's not just cosmetic, either: it has a Breath Weapon that's vastly more powerful than any other Titan's defense systems, and was used in the past for very bloody conquest endeavors until one of Torna's past kings finally sealed it away.
• Post-Final Boss: A hideously mutated Gort is fought by Lora, Jin, and Haze after Malos's defeat.
• Precious Photo: Jin and Lora originally have them on their own, but everyone joins in. After the loss of Lora and Torna's Destruction, Jin burns the photo away.
• "Ray of Hope" Ending: The only thing the audience has left to look forward to is the knowledge that Rex will awaken Pyra/Mythra centuries later, and that the events of the main game will eventually come to pass.
• Regenerating Health: Enemies your level do much more damage this time around but thankfully a portion of the health your Vanguard character loses is converted to red health and switching characters recovers all this red health into green health, similar to Capcom vs. games.
• The Remnant: Malos's sudden destruction of the Titan Coeia in one day means that any Coeian army squads that were away from home have lost their government overnight. With no chain of command to report to, many of them have resorted to banditry and other criminal activity. At one point, Hugo has to leave the party to assist a Mor Ardainian regiment in disarming one of these rogue squads.
• Retcon:
  • Some scenes that were originally shown in flashback in the main game are recreated here, only Addam's no longer wearing the cloak he had in the flashbacks, and any Tantalese soldiers have been replaced with Tornans.
  • Scenes from the beginning of this game suggest Amalthus is much more aware of the consequences of his actions than in the main game, where it was at least plausible that he didn't know that he was starving the world of new Titans.
  • The man who stole Jin's core crystal didn't die as a result of attempting to murder a young Lora who accidentally resonated with Jin. Rather, he merely lost an arm and returns as a Starter Villain in this story and as a Post-Final Boss.
  • Indol's army was only shown to consist of infantry and Titan weapons in flashbacks. Here, the ending sequence shows it also included malformed Blade Eaters like Gort.
• Sad Battle Music: "Our Paths may Never Cross". Understandable, given it's a remix of "The Power of Jin".
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog Story: While Malos is defeated, the entire land of Torna, which the heroes had specifically been fighting to protect, gets destroyed in the process. Worse yet, Malos isn't even destroyed for good as the main story shows.
• Ship Sinking: Any notion of Mythra & Addam being romantically connected is definitively sunk in this DLC. From the beginning of their appearances, their dynamic is much more of an easy-going father lecturing a rebellious teenage daughter, and completing a bunch of sidequests reveals that Addam is a married man with a pregnant wife back home.
• Simple, yet Awesome: Jin's Blade Skills do not rely on any buffs to the party, recharging Arts or Specials, or increasing damage during Driver or Blade Combos. They simply focus on dealing more damage to every attack he launches. Transmigration increases his damage when performing a Vanguard Switch, and Full Resonance increases damage and reduces the damage he takes when he reaches Max Affinity. When maxed out, these skills can multiply his damage by as much as three hundred fifty percent, and he already has the highest auto attack damage in the game. His increased Critical Hit damage on top of his high critical hit rate means he will often hit for more than double damage. Altogether, his Battle Skills mean he will deal the most damage of any character in the game by a wide margin.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: Mythra. Despite the game's best efforts to focus on Team Lora (Lora and Jin in particular), the story's focus immediately shifts to the Aegis herself whenever Malos appears or is discussed at length. This gets to the point where Mythra is the only member of the main party (aside from Addam in a single instance) who Malos addresses by name and pays attention to, and the Final Boss battle against him involves accumulating power for her to activate her Siren to counter his own. After clearing the game, the new title screen is a shot of Pyra, her alternate identity, sealed away in the Ancient Ship.
• Switch-Out Move: The new combat introduces Switch Arts, moves that activate when swapping between Driver and Blade. Just like normal Arts, these moves have their own effects such as Jin's Switch Art inflicting Topple as he enters.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: The King of Torna gives Zettar a thorough one after Zettar demands Addam and his group be punished for failing to stop Malos from taking the seal.
• Shout-Out: In a one sidequest, you deal with the Four Muskerpon, whose name is an obvious parody of The Three Musketeers. What's more, when you confront them, they recite a nonsensical motto that is reminiscent of Team Rocket, complete with the final Muskerpon saying "Meh, that's right."
• Superboss: On top of the ever-present Unique Monsters, you get the Golden Monsters, a bunch of powerful, gold-colored beasts that appear once you unlock the Cave of the Seal.
• The Stinger: Just like the main game. Here, the room where Pyra is sealed away is shown, then it cuts to the doors to the room opening, revealing Rex.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Blades. They are now controllable and fight alongside their Driver in combat. This goes both ways as they are also targettable as shown in the boss fight against Addam and Mythra.
  • Becomes an Inverted Trope gameplay-wise by the time the main game starts. Combat becomes limited between Drivers with exceptions such as Brighid, Malos, Jin, Akhos, and Patroka. All of whom are fought without their Drivers present.
• Trash the Set: The Final Battle sees the Tornan Titan, the main location of the expansion, utterly trashed by the battle against Malos especially once Mythra goes all-out. It ends up being so bad that Torna's Core Crystal is shattered, killing the grievously-injured Titan and causing it to sink to the bottom of the Cloud Sea with most of the population.
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • No extra detail is given on how Mikhail survived the attack or how he managed to escape the Praetorium as a Blade Eater.
  • Minoth is never seen or mentioned again after the scene where Mythra breaks down after realizing Malos killed Milton. Though, as the main game shows, it was likely at this point where he parted ways with Addam and went to Uraya. Likely because Addam goes into exile in the next scene, and Minoth was probably told of it first before telling Team Lora.
• Whole-Plot Reference: In the same way that the base game of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 serves as a remake of the present day portion of Xenogears, the Aegis War briefly mentioned in its backstory is a retelling of the Shevat-Solaris Wars from Xenogears' Disc 2, aka Episode 4 of Xenogears Perfect Works, which takes place 500 years before the main story and centers on the ancestors/previous incarnations of the protagonists getting caught up in the midst of a ongoing political conflict which escalates to mass slaughter and one of the main antagonists' Cynicism Catalyst.
• Wutai: While it was already implied by the members of Torna dressing in samurai-like armor, we see that the nation's buildings and culture were distinctly modeled after medieval Japan.

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