Xenoblade Chronicles

Well, beat 3. Apparently I completely misread what was going on with Origin— I assumed that it was supposed to preserve the inhabitants of the two worlds into a new, fused world, which was then perverted by Moebius, not that the fused world itself was the perversion. ...I think I prefer my version

Kinda surprised that that was the end, actually. Felt like we were missing a few story beats and plot details, and there were a few ascension quests that I have to assume I was missing some obscure unlock condition for

So, the game is fairly good, but I feel like it could have stood to cut things down a fair amount to focus on creating more unique gameplay experiences. Things got samey after a while

Overall, I think this has the highest quality of writing of the three—It does lose steam after a while, but it's more consistent and less pandering than 2's and vastly better at handling the characters than 1. Probably the best gameplay, but that's not a high bar to clear. On the other hand, 1 was better at handling the weird sci-fantasy ideas and 2 did a better job at staying fresh. So, it's my favourite of the three, but largely because blade management in 2 was goddamn awful

...Also, I have a ton of questions about the queens

Edited by Hylarn on Sep 17th 2022 at 10:15:11 AM

It's never answered why the soldiers of Keves and Agnus have set expiration date of ten years and how they are able to be recycled if they are prematurely killed, right?

As with a lot of things, the Watsonian reason seems to be that it was just one of Z's whims stemming from the baser desires of humanity.

As for the fused world, by itself it's not inherently a perversion, it's the fact that they're stuck in some kind of Frankensteined frozen mess that's still continuing to implode, albeit at a vastly decelerated rate. Nia states that after being properly reloaded, the worlds will still come back together at a later time, but hopefully that time they will anneal properly without annihilating each other and that the people will be prepared for it and not so existentially afraid of everything falling apart that Z ends up being born.

The recycling is because their soul data is still stored in the Core Crystals in Origin so they can just respawn them endlessly. Think of it like the Gestalts and Replicants in Nier. Also, I'm pretty sure Moebiuses and people who passed Homecoming will still get to come back in the real world since their data is still there. They just won't come back within Aionios, because Z isn't interested in older people.

Edited by AlleyOop on Sep 17th 2022 at 1:34:28 PM

For the former, it's probably so they don't live long enough to get suspicious of the Forever War. For the latter, IDK.

Edited by ShinyCottonCandy on Sep 17th 2022 at 1:32:29 PM

The Queen of Keves actually explains the ten year limit. The world as always is changed by the drive of young people. When are people at their most vibrant, the most full of life? Their teenage years. If Moebius is looking to eat life energy, they want it before it peaks.

And, no, the worlds are not going to re-fuse, that'd annihilate both universes again. What Nia meant is that they're going to keep talking back and forth and she has faith that eventually they'll figure out how to travel.

Edited by Watashiwa on Sep 17th 2022 at 10:40:50 AM

with the way the orbit they showed in the opening... they should just collide again and again and again, They are too close to each other to stop it from happening. Which is why I expect the DLC to cover the merging of worlds correctly without the annilation events and such... which would only make sense considering the comments that this is the end of Klaus's saga... yet nothing in the game dealt with that.

That's just it, the worlds are separated by dimension, not distance. They occupy the same space in two different universes. The black fog shows where the dimensions are bleeding into each other, and annihilation events are a telefrag when they actually touch. That's why there's no stopping the Intersection, only rebuilding both universes after, using the energy given off by the annihilation.

Just tried out the Summoner and she is awesome for Chain Attack, almost like a reusable Ashera. I easily get all 5 Amazing rounds. Her only problem is that she only boosts your Ether attacks for her Hero Order, but she's probably your best bet when using FMJ as a defender.

Now that I think about it, why is Noah's swimsuit cut so low?

Just a reminder when you're using that hero: Using a healer party member afterwards will still finish that chain attack round, even if it technically adds nothing to your TP total for that sequence. I learned this the hard way.

Its also really really useful to give that hero the legacy of the seven accessory that increases starting TP by 20.

Lifesage hero is also pretty good in Chain Attacks for allowing you to safely build up your TP and get a lot of attacks in for comboing, even if their Chain Order is mostly a crutch and not nearly as good as Ashera's.

Edited by AlleyOop on Sep 18th 2022 at 2:28:30 PM

I took a moment to look at the discussion about 2's storytelling in comparison to 3 and I have to say that I’m not surprised that we’re stuck in the same discourse about it. Not that it isn’t unjustified, but I still can’t help but feel that the discussions about it have never really evolved in the 5 years since its release.

For better or for worse, 2 certainly gave the series the wider audience it deserved, even if that meant that we had to deal with more drama and the more “unsavory types” of people who joined the series with 2.

At the end of the day, for me at least, I feel that the biggest issue with 2’s story taking so long to get really good is that the first half spends a good deal of time establishing what is focused on in the second half but spends the rest of that time engaging in a lot of cliches that clash in tone with the second half.

For example, I’m always going to point to how Rex’s worldview shifts from a generic shonen protagonist view of things to a more mature outlook by the game’s end. The problem is that he only really starts to exhibit this development after Chapter 6, and combined with his power-up in Chapter 7, he doesn’t escape the Escapist Character allegations.

Even though 2 still has my favorite cast of characters and remains my favorite game of all time (until 3 inevitably takes both of those positions), it really can be summed up as the kind of game that you need to accept the flaws of to truly love.

Edited by Mewaddlee on Sep 19th 2022 at 5:45:11 AM

Thinking about 2's battle system, while it is overall an improvement over 1 (and for some reason, the only game where Chain Attacks are relatively RNG-free), it has a few issues that irk me.

Positional effects are useless in this game. With how slow characters move combined with the auto-attack recharge, you do much less damage when you run around to the side or the back.

Realistically, you only use 3 main arts in the battle (or in Mythra's and Fiora's cases, 1). While you can technically switch to the other two Blades, they are just there for stat boost and combo fodder.

I get the idea behind 2's system- every Xenoblade game is built on your party being flexible, and the gacha is how 2 accomplishes that- but, yeah in execution it results in characters having very fragmented Art palettes where you focus on one thing they're good at and mainly use the other two slots for Blade Combo trees. As far as positional Arts go, stutter stepping (is it a Guide Dang It! or a Good Bad Bug?) doesn't help either.

3 adding the quickstep and removing stutter stepping went a long way in making positional Arts better, since you always have a period where you're free to move now.

I always found the idea of positional arts useless except in 3, as I couldn't really trust the AI to use them in 1, and we all know how counterintuitive they are in 2. Contarywise to popular opinion, I found myself juggling between each driver's blades in order to capitalize on driver combos.

The AI is pretty good about using positional arts in 3

To the point where it's actually a problem at times, especially with larger bosses, since e.g. Sena is miles away from the rest of the party and outside the range of the healers.

What the AI is not good at is using the healers' field placement arts in an optimal way.

They're also not good about staying in fields.

I swear by the Queen's Ruffled Feathers every regen ring I put down comes with a Taion repelling field.

So, I’m thinking about adding images to the Moebius page but I’m a bit confused on how might be the best way to implement them.

Easily the biggest thing is about D. I want to add an image of him unmasked, which should be a given, but I’ve encountered a conundrum with addressing his Moebius form when not Interlinked.

I don’t think that it makes much sense to add DJ’s interlinked form under J’s folder (since the story treats D as the one primarily in control of the fusion), but the fact is that the story initially treats DJ’s interlinked form as D’s Moebius form (at least until the reveal in Chapter 4.

So I’m asking myself if I should add D’s Moebius form when not interlinked to his folder and mark it as a spoiler or if should take a different approach Something like this:

Click here to see his Moebius form when Interlinked with J

Click here to see his Moebius form when not Interlinked with J

Edit:

And on a completely unrelated note, it turns out that V’s Japanese voice actor is the official Dub actor for Willem Dafoe, Steve Buscemi, and the Japanese voice of Dr. Doofenschmirtz. So yes, I think it’s safe to say that the old-timey cartoon villain vibes he gives off were entirely intentional.

Tetsuya Takahashi has mentioned in the past that “Most of the movies, TV dramas, novels, and games I pick up are made in the West. I don’t do this deliberately; that just turned out to be the kind of thing I like. As a result, I’ve come to the realization that it’s best to try and organically make the kind of things I like, or want.” Who knows what he and the other writers have been watching and reading for ideas.

Edited by Mewaddlee on Sep 20th 2022 at 3:41:58 AM

Well, you can kind of guess the major influence for 3: The Matrix. With the exception of a single free city, humanity is plugged into a system where they provide fuel for a non-human intelligence of human origin. The chosen ones get their powers by subverting the system, but have to contend with the fact that their rebellion has been planned for. That's the obvious stuff, but you could argue that there are bits of They Live, maybe some Battlestar Galactica, and so on.

Somebody less sleep deprived than me think up a good Moebius-based pun for this:

Edited by JapaneseTeeth on Sep 20th 2022 at 8:11:56 AM

One of these things is not like the others...

Yeah, seriously. Only one of them played the Green Goblin in a Spider-Man movie.

Yeah, you have two supervillains and Nikita Khrushchev

Edited by jdeo1997 on Sep 20th 2022 at 11:34:08 AM