Xenoblade Chronicles

My hypothesis is that Mira is just another alternate dimension created by the Conduit doing MAGIC THINGS. After all, while it's somewhat more planet-like than the ocean of Bionis and Mechonis, there's still plenty of weird things that happen on it. In fact, if the hd remaster didn't super-heavily imply Alvis was the third Aegis I'd say that Mira was one of the Aegises. The only real wrench in this plan is that most of the giant robots in the space elevator look nothing like Skells.

They already retconned the universe ending catalysism in XB 1. Remember, Alvis thought the universe was destroyed when in fact, they were just moved to a pocket dimension. Monolith Soft don't give a shit. So humans on White Whale thought Earth blew up when in actuality, some guy terraformed it.

X's theme is the coexistence of fundamentally different people, a theme that was everywhere in the game.

I don't care much for the plot of 1. I can barely remember large chunks of it, and after the Mechonis Core I basically quit. This game that everybody hype up as so fresh and original compared to all those other crappy JRP Gs, and then in the end we get a god who was not evil or tyrannical giving a speech about how gods are always evil tyrants and Shulk and company need to go free humanity by killing Zanza, in other words; a bunch of JRPG cliches, and ones I didn't like much the first time. Yeah, yeah, they make it slightly more complicated... in the game's final cutscene. After that, the game just didn't feel worth playing anymore.

The main plot of X is kind of weak, but it's easily my favorite game in the series. It has a huge world to explore and gave you good reason to explore it, gives you a huge number of interesting quests to explore that tend to have good stories in their own right... it's one of my favorite games ever, honestly.

Nach jeder Ebbe kommt die Flut.

My wishlist for a hypothetical update.

• A gem that guarantees Chain Link as long as you pass QTE.

• Higher jumping speed.

• Being able to decide when the AI will use Talent Art.

Edited by RAlexa21th on Jun 16th 2020 at 6:30:06 AM

Where there's life, there's hope.

Updates for remakes are rare unless its for something gamebreaking.

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According to this guide below a physical Sharla build is actually a thing thanks to level 12 art books lowering Head Shot's base cooldown to 14.4 seconds and Drive Boost lowering it even further so you can spam it.

Edited by tclittle on Jun 16th 2020 at 8:35:01 AM

"We're all paper, we're all scissors, we're all fightin' with our mirrors, scared we'll never find somebody to love."

She can finally take advantage of Peerless, for all it worth.

Where there's life, there's hope.

My brief take on the strengths and weaknesses of the games:

• 1 has the strongest plotline, weak sidequests (they almost all consist of "collect X items" or "kill X monster"; yeah the other games do that too, but they're also better at attaching characters to the sidequests)
• X has the best side quests by a sizeable margin (many of the sidequests actually have memorable moments, and feel like actual events rather than just checkmarking a list of pickups), and probably has the best NPC cast, but the main plotline is extremely thin.
• 2 is a mixed bag. The main plot quality is between the other two, and while Rex is a probably the weakest protagonist of the whole bunch, I think the other party members in 2 are actually integrated into the main plot a bit better than in 1. I actually really like 2's battle system, and the concept behind the blades is actually really interesting both in terms of gameplay and story, but the gacha mechanic just hamstrings it in both aspects. The sidequests are generally more interesting than 1's (and they aren't timed), but not quite to X's level, although the Torna DLC comes pretty close.

Edited by JapaneseTeeth on Jun 16th 2020 at 11:42:09 AM

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I disagree when it comes to sidequest quality. 1 was a lot better than 2 on attaching characters to sidequests. Unless you're talking only about the Blade Quests and/or Torna. Watching the Affinity Chart evolve over time added a lot on that front.

X has the best narrative, but it's a completely different kind of story compared to 1 and 2's more straightforward narratives, so it's not really a fair comparison.

Edited by Sterok on Jun 16th 2020 at 10:27:27 AM

X also has the worst gameplay of the three in my opinion.

It wants to be an MMO so bad but only borrowed the worst aspects of it, and the battle system(s) is nonsensical and extremely lopsided; either you kill the big monster in five seconds with an overpowered build, or you die horribly. There never seems to be a middle ground where you get an actual good fight.

XC 2's attempt at copping gachapon mechanics falls flat but at least the gameplay itself is a blast. It has my favorite battle system of the three, which then gets improved further with Torna.

You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!

Yeah, the blade quests are one example. 1 doesn't really have anything comparable to that. It does benefit from the affinity chart, but it still feels a bit thin because very few of the quests have much of a plotline.

My main gripe with X's gameplay was that the game never gives a full explanation of how the heck the frontiernav system works. The MMO aspect of it was indeed a pain, but I actually thought it handled the exploration aspect really well. It's one of only a handful of games where running around the world really feels like exploring a real place.

But yeah, I'm not a huge fan of that battle system, and 2 improved greatly on it. Torna's version was also good, but the removal of most of the customization hampered it a little. It worked in the context of the DLC well enough, but a full game needs more flexibility. Take Torna's battle system with 2's customization options (minus the gacha) and you'd have a really great battle system.

Edited by JapaneseTeeth on Jun 16th 2020 at 1:14:04 PM

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Yeah X's battle system sucked but goddamn is it one of the best worlds to explore in possibly any video game I've ever played.

Oh yeah X definitely has the best exploration.

Though it's obnoxious how hidden enemies will still aggro you in battle even when you far outlevel them.

You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!

2 has the most replay value for me but admittedly most of it came from DLC.

And also 2 has so many horrible grind, from affinity to Ursula and Vess to trust and to KOS-MOS. The only thing coming close to these is 1's Colony 6.

Where there's life, there's hope.

Purely my rankings but:

• Best battle system: 2 > 1 >>>>> X
• Best overall player party: 2 > 1 > X
• Best antagonists: 2 > 1 > X
• Best side characters: X > 1 > 2
• Best character design: 1 = 2's nonsexualized designs > X >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 2's sexualized designs
• Best main plot: 1 > 2 > X
• Best sidequests: X > 2 > 1
• Best exploration: X > 1 > 2
• Best music: 2 > 1 > X
• Best cutscenes: 2 > 1 > X
• Best final boss: 1 = 2 > X
• Most annoying mechanic: X's everything > 2's gacha >>>>>>>> 1's... uh... Vision Reacts replacing boss music?
• Best overall: 2 > 1 > X

2 just barely edges out over 1 in spite of the gacha. I like them both a lot but 2 has enough little improvements to just barely take the W in spite of its flaws. If we include TTGC it's no longer even a question, but that's not really fair.

X ranks pretty low for me in almost every way except its exploration, sidequests, and side characters. I don't hate the game but I'm in no rush to ever replay it after completing all the sidequests.

Edited by Anomalocaris20 on Jun 16th 2020 at 2:53:45 PM

You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!

X can actually have close fights. In fact, most of my second playthrough was entirely made of close fights. One of my biggest surprises replaying it was discovering that the insufferable grind to make the overpowered builds only exist to make more consistent something that can be achieved with just skills and arts, and that without the grind it's actually a challenge to maintain infinite overdrive through the whole fight until you manage to empty the H Ps of the enemy. Which in turns allows you to punch way above your weight and makes the exploration of the world even better because if you're willing to, you can walk through areas way ahead of your level. I'll go as far as to say this was the most challenging of all three xenos games thanks to that.

X's real problem is that it does a crappy job at explaining the mechanics of it's battle system that actually matters. Also, party members are mostly useless. All of the heavy lifting falls on cross. The only positive of that is that it means you can select your party purely on how much you like a character, but that's not a very big plus.

Gonna disagree with the idea that 2 has better sidequests than 1. They may be more varied in objectives, but 1's were much more integrated to the gameworld, and you could feel a lot more the consequences of completing the quest in further dialogues. I could recite by heart about half of the sidequests of 1 and which npc it's tied to, but I have to scrape the bottom of my memories to find quests in 2 I can remember. 2's world being so devoid of life and feeling like it's not even real is my biggest issue with it.

Edited by Yumil on Jun 17th 2020 at 9:00:16 PM

"when you stare too long into the abyss, Xehanort takes advantage of the distraction to break into your house and steal all your shit."

For the record I'm including Blade Quests as part of 2's sidequests, if that matters.

You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!

That's fair, but I'd still argue that Blade quests are a net improvement in terms of production values and concept yet still fundamentally miss the point that made 1 and X's sidequests interesting in the first place. Sidequests in the xeno games don't exist for their own sake, they exist to flesh out the world and incentivize you to explore the whole map. Because blades don't ever have any relevance neither to the plot nor to the world of the game outside of their own quests, they completely miss the mark on the first point (and so does regular quests of 2, for the most part), and the second is undermined by the gacha system that makes trying to complete sidequests as soon as available a chaotic mess where you just go over the same places over and over through the game.

Edited by Yumil on Jun 17th 2020 at 9:16:19 PM

"when you stare too long into the abyss, Xehanort takes advantage of the distraction to break into your house and steal all your shit."

2 had the weakest sidequests in terms of plotline significance (not counting Blade quests). It doesn't even have a proper affinity chart. That said, it still leaves out the generic "kill enemies or gather 20 Bear Asses" quests and leaves it to the blade charts, which can be bypassed via Merc Missions.

Even the Blade quests are a one time thing, compared to X's affinity missions where it spans a whole character arc over the course of the game.

For me, the overall experience is:

1 = X = 2 >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> TGC

In terms of gameplay I think 2's sidequests are superior. In terms of fleshing out the world 1 is probably better, but the quests themselves tend to have very generic objectives most of the time, and for me at least, they blur together after a while. 2 at least had unique blade quests.

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Yeah most of the quests in 1 blend together for me compared to 2’s

A problem with 2's sidequests is that too many of them have multiple tasks.

Like you complete the task, report back, and the quest giver gives you another task. So you do that, report back, and then yet another task.

All on the same quest.

And God help you if a quest requires a blade ability that you didn't sufficiently level up.

It's like the fanservice costumes: the previous games had it, but 2 takes it to a ridiculous degree.

Edit: Also, look at it like this: In X, I can remember sidequests about a Nazi, an Orphe eating a sacred tree, a hero obsessed weirdo, trying to quell two warring tribes, and having two aliens fall in love with you.

In 2, I just remember the Gormotti/human couple who ran away from the former's bigoted parents and the Gormotti guy who joined the army to find his deadbeat father. In case it wasn't clear, I stopped giving a shit after Gormott. lol

Edited by NoName999 on Jun 17th 2020 at 7:56:29 AM

And yet 2 has the worst cosmetic options even with DLC. Now that's what I call irony.

Final Marcus killed in 52 seconds. I fought him at Lv.90.

Where there's life, there's hope.

You forgot about the Nopon merchant who stranded himself on a floating island while looking for a remedy for the baldness he accidentally caused. Which then turned out to be irrelevant when the bald person remembered they're a robot and can just get new hair.

Or that Walking Techbane coffee shop worker.

Edited by JapaneseTeeth on Jun 17th 2020 at 11:25:55 AM

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