Xenoblade Chronicles

I will say, I don't mind the Blade Quests being more self-contained because that's at least thematic. A major theme in 2 is finding personal meaning in what you're doing, and Blade's being what they are each of their quests involves the party helping them figure themselves out and find that meaning for themselves. 1's sidequests are more about the world itself and how people are living in it, so it ultimately puts the emphasis on them, and the whole Colony 6 series of quests is so incredible for precisely that reason; you've helped build this society and are now helping maintain it. Merc missions are a far cry from that, but then Garfont isn't really trying to be Colony 6 so I don't mind the lesser involvement overall.

I will say, 2 overall felt messier than 1, but I appreciated how that main theme of personal meaning ties into all the blades and the main antagonists. Amalthus had given into nihilism, seeking to become the god of the new world in the hopes of forcing some measure of meaning onto it. Jin and Malos meanwhile find meaning in each other; the jaded Jin after losing the person he cared about most found meaning in aiding his old foe's goal of destruction of the world that had betrayed him, and Malos found a reason to destroy in seeing one of the heroes who stopped him tossed aside by the people he'd saved. Jin realizes that perhaps the world might not need to be destroyed to fulfill his vengeance and find his peace when he sees Rex and the party fighting on against Amalthus' nihilism. Malos ultimately creates his own meaning for himself by deciding that, if he must be plagued with the urge to destroy, then he will put that urge to use, and challenge those who want to save the world, becoming the ultimate threat that Rex must defeat in order to prove that the world can produce someone capable of challenging the worst aspects of it head on.

X did have the best sidequests overall, since so many of them had legitimate stakes and choices to be made and made you feel involved in the conflict rather than just fulfilling tasks. I'd say 1 and 2 are roughly equal for me in terms of sidequests because they're ultimately focused on different things, with 1 focusing on worldbuilding and establishing communities, and 2 focusing on little character vignettes and finding meaning in the situations.

Shulk/Seven/Dunban and Melia/Seven/Dunban take on the hardest challenge.

https://youtu.be/b-M1ppuU7Y4 https://youtu.be/kMTJ0JVeews

You know what I think you've hit the nail on the head. That's exactly how I feel about all three games, which puts a lot of things into order that have been floating free until now.

Daedala killed in 1:50

I'm not sure I'll ever get used to Melia having her own private Nopon army.

Future Connected kind of makes me wish more for a 2 epilogue. I'm more interested in the world that Rex and the various powers have to build at the end than in 1's ending. Just seems more intriguing since 2's factions are more divided.

I'd rather Xenoblade 1 stay independent like it's meant to be.

I just want X to actually have an ending.

Beat Future Connected. I really wasn't expecting much, and there were plenty of nice Melia and Tyrea moments, but the story indeed is just kind of there. The main problem is the Fog King being nothing of note, just apparently a monster from another dimension. If it's supposed to connect to 2 or X it flew right over my head. Bionis Shoulder was nice to explore at least. Cute experience, but nothing must see unless there's something amazing for beating all the sidequests.

Gonna agree with watashiwa here, A+ post there, Alfric. I never looked at 2 that way but it does give a lot more sense to a lot of things in it.

I enjoyed Future Connected for what it was, but it did feel a bit lacking, especially with the downgrades to the mechanics and the Fog King being such a nothing villain. I don't necessarily need any overt connection to other games or a heavy Mythology Gag or anything, but I expected there to at least be some greater kind of mystique, and for the Fogbeast mechanic to actually have some impact besides artificially inflating levels, as I still stomped on all of them from doing most of the Ponspector quests first.

Just completely Corvin's affinity chart. Working on Crossette's now.

Trying to do Telos', but Soothsayer Gerald refuses to appear (he showed up the first time I went after him, but during the fight, he decided to be a bitch and fall off the cliff. He hasn't re-spawned since then, due to the condition to get him to appear now refusing to happen), and I can't find and Sting Runners in the World Tree (they are supposed to be om Lv. 3 Alioth, but all I see are the near identical Famillion Sovereigns).

So this game is determined to frustrate me.

I like the idea that free of Zanzas influence the Telethia ended up fighting and opposing a threat to show that they are still in there even now.

You seriously trying to go after enemies for affinity charts even though you could easily do them with merc missions? Get with the program, man!

I thought it was a good way to kill time. Plus I like fighting enemies.

But fine. Merc Missions from here on in.

I mean, you could spend that time...farming and opening core crystals. Don't mean to rub it in. I just hate having to look for specific enemies to fight just to complete sidequests. It's a burden in Xenoblade 1 and X, and I'm so happy this can be circumvented with Merc Missions in 2. Except for the signature blades unless you want to put off developing them until New Game Plus like an idiot. I've actually memorized what sorts of enemies I need to slay just for those blades.

What I'm reading guys, it seems like the affinity chart in 2 is straight trashfire.

Then again, I always knew it was trashfire. lol

Affinity charts mean something else entirely in Xenoblade 2. It's more like an arts/skills upgrade page for blades rather than the drivers, who use a more traditional arts and skills upgrade system. So to upgrade Pyra's level 1 blade arts used on command, you'll need to do stuff like kill a certain amount of a type of monster in an area, or gather some kind of item, and need to be done in an ascending order. Basically, think of those irritating generic kill/gather quests in Xenoblade 1 and X and put them here. The benefit is that this gets rid of a lot of quest clutter in the overworld (though X at least contained the generic missions on a bulletin board so that they can be gathered in one spot) and most cases these can be bypassed with merc missions, where you send blades off to do things and they'll come back in the designated time that merc mission says so. The longevity of said missions doesn't affect the progress made in these charts (they always complete the current row's progress by half), which is why Ursula's ten-minute missions are so handy. Of course, you can't send story blades on those missions, which is how I managed to memorize my kill list for each of them.

There isn't actually any proper affinity chart in 2, because NPCs are so unimportant that they don't deserve registration. It's why the non-blade sidequests in 2 are by far the most inconsequential and their names are so forgettable.

Future Connected/X stuff. I've seen some speculation that there might be some connection between the Fog King and the Vita. Both contaminated the monsters around them and attracted a Telethia's attention. One of the Telethia flying into the rift could have ended up on Mira. There's not much to go on, but it's something at least.

well, it does play into that subplot of X where The telethia is hinted at being from XB 1 literally so it's role here means it pretty much found a new purpose in Zanza's absence, which is similar to what happens in FC

Wait where in X was that hinted?

In the last quest you're likely to compelte, the one where you have to kill him to salvage what's left of an orphean. When you bring back the remains to the other orpheans, you can inquire what they learned about the creature and they say the telethia remembers living a vaslty different ecosystem than noctilum. It's entirely missable, since not only can you complete the quest in a different (albeit strictly inferior) way, and even if you do, you have to actually select the dialogue option instead of passing on the orphean's last words.

Edited by Yumil on Jun 21st 2020 at 3:10:21 PM

Ah never got far enough to do that quest, maybe my next run of the game after Definitive and some other stuff.

But all that really suggests is the Telethia, like damn near everything else but maybe Lucifer^* Sidenote, Ray Chase is cool af and gave me a free poster w/ personalized message and autograph for knowing L’s actual name, isn’t actually native to Mira, not that it’s specifically from Zanza’s universe. Well, unless the actual text in game is more specific I guess, I’ll find out sooner or later.

On that tangent, isn’t one of the other Ultrafauna Ygddra-something described as basically Jenova?

It's all ambiguity.

I mean, yeah, it's not openly stated, only hinted at and you could take it differently (I don't think the quest ever specifies anything that would constitute definitive proof), it was just a theory at the time, but FC might give it more credit.

The yggdralith are pretty much jenovas as a race though, yeah. Crash somewhere, drain the planet of energy until it's dead, move on to somewhere else.

Edited by Yumil on Jun 21st 2020 at 7:06:37 PM

Don't you mean a race of Lavoses?