Xenoblade Chronicles

Torna makes orb stacking matters, so that's something noteworthy. In the main game 1 or 2 orbs are enough to wipe out superbosses.

Also, before I forget: Healing was perfectly viable on XCDE. My universal answer to the endgame where I had to take down monsters 20 levels above me was shulk with night vision, riki and sharla. Can't kill me if I can outheal everyone else. Sure, battles sometimes lasted three whole in game days, but I'm alive and laughing at them, and they're not. Is it the better strat ? probably not, but the fact it worked for monsters up to twently levels above me has to account for something.

As for the rest, it's funny you mention finding it normal to struggle on a boss, because I don't find that normal, personally. All three xenoblade games have exactly one boss that managed to kill me everytime I play them, and never more than twice. It was the final boss for 1 and X, it was shadow morag for 2, and yaldabaoth playing DE because I got too reckless with dunban and seven and ditched healing entirely.

The way I see things, I have a ton of games in the backlog, so I don't plan on replaying 80+ hours rpgs without a damn good reason to do so, so I'm doing everything in it once and moving on with my life, so I try to do absolutely everything I can do as soon as possible, with moving the plot forward being dead last.

2's haphazard blade distribution drove me off the wall because of that in particular because it took that habit and brought the worst out of it, but that aside, the xeno games so far have had this running trend that this leads to me being couple of levels ahead of what the story has in store for me so I manage to get through it by winging it everytime, and by the time the game catches up to my completionnist habits, it's superboss time and since I already did pretty much everything, I have most of the resources the game could give me anyway and I can figure something just by taking the time to look at my options.

(Except X, because "doing everything" in X is still a drop in the ocean of grind and because winging it can't hold a candle to having an idea of what you're doing, but even then, my response was to learn the bare minimum I needed to know to keep winging it and do that).

Flipside is that I die a ton of times to a lot of ennemies I'm clearly not meant to even come close to at this point of the game, but hey.

But yeah, I think the whole planning thing sums it up pretty nicely : you like to plan things up ahead while I rush first and adapt second. I couldn't tell why it works so well with torna because I kinda forgot the gameplay of the game outside of the fact it felt pretty good, but it's just one of those things you gotta chalk up to people having different approach to problems.

Edited by Yumil on Jun 26th 2020 at 7:30:11 PM

Just picked up XCDE. ...What does the affinity chart do and how does it work? I get that there's something about talking to NPCs, but I have no idea what this does or why I should care

NPC affinity charts are simply for world building. Party affinity determines things like Skill Link, Chain Attack extender, and gem crafting. Area affinity determines which item can be traded and which sidequest can be done.

The Affinity chart is mainly used to track down named NP Cs. The original had the time an NPC is active. DE added in a highlight feature, allowing you to directly track a specific NPC, and a trade list, showing you exactly what the an NPC trades with your current area affinity level.

It also gives the ages of each NPC, a personality blurb, and as you quest, links between different NPC showing their relationships. Which isn't useful, but gives some world building.

I for one enjoyed Torna's battle system a lot.

I'll agree that all the major bosses having Elemental Awakening sucks though.

Torna's battle system was designed for a quick 20-hour game, not an epic 80 hour adventure. It's why there's not much issue with their being very little customization, since once the battle system gets old the game is over.

It's more action-oriented with the constant switching, which is a nice pace-changer from base 2. The ease of switching characters also helped incentivize trying different characters while in the other games you'll usually just stick with one team composition the majority of the game since learning new characters/builds/blades can be a pain.

But the real benefit was always being able to directly control Mythra and Morag. I could never get over the incredibly durable super weapons supporting on the sidelines while their squishy masters did most of the fighting.

I liked Torna because limiting my choices means I enjoy the game more.

I personally don't like having lots of ways to build each character. I prefer a smallish party with each member having a distinct play-style, Xenoblade 1's level of customization is perfect for me. Some options but they aren't overwhelming.

Although I also liked the game forcing you to do most of the sidequests, which I know was unpopular around here.

Edited by 32ndfreeze on Jun 27th 2020 at 4:04:25 AM

You mean Brighid instead of Moràg, right?

Xenoblade 2 doesn't really have much options because weapons are mostly clones of each other.

Edited by RAlexa21th on Jun 26th 2020 at 11:05:24 AM

Er, yeah.

1 has decent customization since all seven characters play differently, but it's got a massive issue of any one strategy working against all enemies with little room or need to vary things. So you have to actually make your own variety instead of waiting for the game to incentivize you to do so.

Welcome Darkflamewolf and Hylarn! I'm incredibly excited to hear your impressions of the game. If you have any questions be sure to ask, and for your own sakes please avoid the spoilers that I'm sure everyone will be using again shortly.

The base game also limits customization because giving Nia an aggro loving hammer is a horrible idea. lol

Yeah, I also thought Torna's battle system was an improvement. I do think the lack of customization was an issue, but because Torna is a shorter DLC campaign and not a full game, I didn't consider it a major problem. If it was a full game, then yeah, it would've needed a good deal more flexibility.

I think, out of all the things that bugged me about Torna, which is a lot, I think the thing that kills the replayability for me is that...it's not replayable at all. You're stuck with the same members on the crew with hardly any means of customization (I did mention this before, but what I didn't mention was that even with the drivers' elements, you're still technically limited since you don't want to use dark weapons on Addam, Ice/Wind weapons on Lora, etc), the progression is essentially the same on each playthrough, and there isn't much to thinking outside the box.

It didn't help that on my second playthrough, when I did every sidequest on my way to the capital, it immediately went under siege because my community level was high enough and the trigger for both the summit and the attack are in the same place, leaving me unable to do the sidequests unlocked by going to the summit but before the siege.

I also found controlling blades to be pretty pointless, given how shallow their arts are (not a single direct driver combo art). I always just wanted to control the drivers and couldn't wait to switch back to them.

The forced sidequests were probably the least problematic thing in the game, which is to be expected coming from someone who does every sidequest possible anyway.

I've always been extremely conservative when it comes to getting new games, being taught to treasure each one I already have and making the most out of them. I can't imagine what it's like to use and "dispose" (in this case, not revisit) games like used tissues.

Xenoblade games have always been about thoroughly replayability and correcting your mistakes on repeated playthroughs. To see an exception to this and see it botch the execution so much is heartbreaking, and seeing people praise it is like seeing a prospector bury a gem and dig up a turd. Torna's clearly made to be a rental game, even though rentals have gone the way of the dinosaurs. Or perhaps, I should say, Torna itself.

Edited by RainingMetal on Jun 27th 2020 at 8:37:44 AM

Man Who Enjoys Thing Informed He is Wrong.

But the gacha system invalidates that in 2 because, outside a few blades, you don't know who you're going to get and on what driver.

Fair enough, even I can't deny the gacha system is the big thing that prevents me from starting a fresh new playthrough on 2 due to the risks involved. And obviously not all weapons worked well for every driver. But playing New Game Plus is still enjoyable, and at least the weapons that did work out worked well. I can't say the same for TGC. A game that took the good parts of 2 and did everything to make it bad, and have little motivation to play it again, both story-wise and gameplay wise.

Between the gun-to-your-head switch out methods for healing in a game that already hits you relentlessly hard, the static party layout, and thoroughly uninteresting arts that are also static, TGC just felt like a waste of time. Trying to understand how people enjoyed it triggers a serious Logic Bomb for me.

Edited by RainingMetal on Jun 27th 2020 at 11:49:37 AM

My personal ranking for enjoyment of the combat system goes 1 > Torna > 2 > X.

In terms of how it actually feels when you're in combat.

X had tons of customization, but the feel of combat was the same basically no matter what you do. And that was a feel I didn't enjoy. Skell combat was better than ground combat though.

Edited by justinkal on Jun 27th 2020 at 1:55:37 PM

I would vehemently disagree with the idea xenoblade games have great replay value. There's some merit to rewatching the story and seeing the contextualization of earlier scenes, like realizing shulk's first dream happens on prison island and others, or catching on to the fact desiree spells out the big twist of prison island in a randomass quest, but offering half a dozen of branching paths to sidequest does not qualify as great for replay value when we're talking about a 80+ hour rpg. Neither would X, for that matter.

If anything, I respect more a game that length that doesn't need to be replayed than one that does. Fire emblem radiant dawn locking the best bits of lore behind ng+ was not a good thing, as far as i care.

For me, the sensation and motivation to replay a game comes from within. There's an unexplained charm that comes from repeating a game, but with hindsight on your side, and proceeding through that game smoothly, especially during the parts you struggled. The many options that came from most Xenoblade games provided it. TGC's static layout did not. I reckon Future Connected might fare the same, but at least the majority of the combat system was left alone. Of course, for someone who just likes to play a game once to get through the main story and call it a day, they'd be satisfied. I was not. A game that's long on its own is fine by me, but I did pay full price for a game, and I hope to get as much value out of it as I can. If I'm not motivated to play through it again, I call that a loss.

Some peoples' ambitions will always remain limited.

Edited by RainingMetal on Jun 27th 2020 at 12:08:57 PM

Yeah, I think that when a single playthrough of a game takes over 100 hours, replay-ability takes a backseat to making sure those 100 hours are fun. A game could be one of the best games in the universe, but after that long doing it once I'm probably going to want to do something else for a while before playing it again.

Basically, the shorter a game is, the more important it is to be able to go back to it and mine out more enjoyment.

Edited by JapaneseTeeth on Jun 27th 2020 at 2:19:15 PM

Some games like Pikmin or Metroid are really built for multiple playthroughs by being relatively short and encouraging you to best your previous records.

Xenoblade, like many extra-long JRPGs, really isn't. Maybe do one New Game Plus playthrough to mop up content you missed the first time around, but unless you're a dedicated speedrunner or don't have many other games to turn to, it's hard to motivate for a third playthrough, fresh start or otherwise.

Of course there are exceptions on a person-to-person basis— I can't tell you how many times I've played through TLOZ: The Wind Waker even though it's a fairly static experience each time —but many games simply aren't really built with the intention of you coming back for fourth or fifth playthroughs.

Edited by Anomalocaris20 on Jun 27th 2020 at 3:22:37 PM

Alright. I've completely my last few quests, and filled out the affinity charts for the last few blades I got.

Still no KOS-MOS, so as there's absolutely nothing left for me to do post game, I intend to start New Game Plus the next time I turn the game on, and use that to fill time while I try and get her.

Sounds like fun. -_-

Get the New Game Plus blades, such as Shulk, Fiora and Elma however, does sound like fun. I recall being told I should save it for then, hence why I haven't tried it yet.

Also, I'll finally be able to fully fill Poppi Alpha's blade chart. I only had getting a specific high score on Tiger Tiger for the last node...and you guys recall I really hate Tiger Tiger.

....man, this game has a lot of things that actually piss me off. And yet I still rather like it. BTLS for the win I suppose. Along with those Blade Combos and the Chain attack too.

But seriously, fuck you KOS-MOS. I glad Shion ended up with Allen. And fuck Gacha too.

And fuck Tiger Tiger.

Everything else is cool. Including Sheba.

Yeah, in my mind there are basically two types of games: huge, sprawling, dense affairs where the fun comes from exploring the world, finding all of the secrets, and generally accomplishing things, and smaller-scale more skill-based games where the goal is to hone your ability to play the game well. Both can have replayability, but it's far more important for the latter ones, since they're often built with the intent that you're going to be replaying them to improve.

I find stuff like Xenoblade falls more into the former category, where I'd much rather spend a lot of time digging through everything the game has to offer the first time I play it, as opposed to something like Super Mario Odyssey, where half the fun is going back through after beating the game and finding all the things you missed the first time.

Not gonna lie, I actually didn't mind Tiger Tiger much. My main gripe is less the game itself and more how much time you have to spend on it to unlock everything.

Edited by JapaneseTeeth on Jun 27th 2020 at 2:24:57 PM

I like Tiger Tiger, the game itself.

I don't like how paltry the payout is compared to the cost of upgrades though. You're better off just buying the crystals/rare parts from the NG+ bards and only playing Tiger Tiger for entertainment value.