Xenoblade Chronicles

There is! It works almost identically but has many fewer stages. It's where they put almost all of the new costumes as well.

The Land of Challenge in DE is rather super easy.

Well, I took care of most of those fights I was struggling with in 2's version of the land of challenge. It was a simple matter.....I finally used custom settings.

Set everything as low as possible for enemies, and as high as possible for myself. So I still have a few left to do for Shulk, Fiora and Elma, but I made some progress. Unfortunately, I'm still short for filling some affinity charts for my normal blades. I may have to just start tossing out blades early.

And all so I can fail to get you know who again.

Ah, yeah, I was talking about 2 earlier. I was figuring that I'd be fine in the 70s as far as the ones that lower your level go, but... yeah, guess I still have some learning to do before those'll go more smoothly.

And yep, can attest Definitive Edition's challenge mode is a lot easier since the usual tricks will work for the most part, and the things they track for scoring (i.e. big Chain Attack combos and daze locks) are things that fall under "usual tricks" anyways.

Although some of the fixed party challenges in Definitive Edition are infuriating.

Stuff like making you play as Melia without her good arts or making you play as Riki when your allies are Shulk and Sharla.

It's also worth noting that the Noponstones can be used for more than just buying costumes, and that the Noponstone price inflation is really noticeable. Think of Pinball Scoring in comparison to 2.

What I cay about DE's Land of Challenge has already been said here. And I too resorted to using super easy settings for 2's nastier challenges, but even then I still needed to resort to guides due to the immense Fake Difficulty they provide.

Even those ones still have tricks to them... I think. Like, the one where Melia (as the only healer), Riki, and Dunban take on a crapton of Kromar? I think what they want out of you there is to use Shadow Stitch to lock the entire second wave into place so that Flame and Wind can shred them, and then you have a full Party Gauge for the final bit.

And yep, I wanted to save up Noponstone to unlock all the costumes but I had to blow it on one of the Bionis' Interior collectables for Colony 6 instead. No one trades it before you get the upgrade that needs it, so... at least DE added a different way to get it.

You can use Save Scumming to your advantage by purchasing the costumes you don't have in your roster and re-loading your save, as your cosmetics roster is tied to your account or something (point is it's not to your save, so you can save Noponstones tremendously that way, and gold, if you care about that).

Yeah, I was kinda the same, but I just grinded one particular challenge run just to get enough Black Liver Beans to finish off Colony 6 reconstruction. Because I wasn't going to grind collectables.

I still wish you could convert gold into Noponstones and vice versa. Or just buy off collectibles with hard cash.

Well, had another run at grinding for KOS-MOS (and Akhos).

No luck for either. I don't know how much blood this game wants, but I guarantee I don't have enough.

Chuggaaconroy just got to the end of chapter 3 in 2 and I just realized that what Vandham did during his dying battle against Malos and Akhos was become a Blade Eater.

What? Really?

....does it count if you use the weapons?

It would explain how he punched Malos straight in his smug, stupid face.

I don't think that's quite the same thing. That's just him using the scythes as a conduit to channel ether directly into his body, which Obrona can't interrupt for some reason.

It would be a suitable correlation though. I hadn't considered it myself, but reading that explanation is very satisfying.

1 Definitive sold 1.41 million units as of September 30th.

Been inspired to pick up Xenoblade 2 again by Chuggaaconroy's LP.

I'm sitting at the endgame, with nothing to really do. Superbosses hit for stupidly high damage, and the only way I could beat Gladiator Orion is just to sit in Poppi Alpha's Rigid Shield while letting Blade Combo damage tick on him.

Other party members are instakilled by him constantly, making them a waste of time to revive. I just...

What are you even supposed to do in the postgame, when everything is an instakill if you aren't Tora? And becomes an instakill when they start using Break/Topple effects?

Isn't that the Driver superboss? Add about 10-15 levels to his difficulty to properly account for being a Driver. Come back to him much later in the postgame. You definitely can't fight him unoptimized.

Try the Factory, Ophion, Tantal during a heavy storm for more reasonable postgame challenges. Look up a location guide for the other superbosses.

I did actually beat him, I just didn't enjoy it.

Didn't think that one extra level would add that much difficulty. I think I had an easier time beating Pernicious Benf.

I dunno, trying to find ways to kill time while waiting for merc groups to finish just feels a bit aimless.

Somehow managed to use every single common core crystal I'd acquired by chapter 5 (quite a few since I bought the DLC) and still didn't manage to get all the common blade types I need to complete the Shiny New Power quest. Damn you, giant-type Megalance! Ah well, I got a few of the rare blades out of it, and with maybe one exception they match their driver, so at least there's that.

As for my impressions of the game so far... Well, I'm enjoying it, but I can definitely see why it can be divisive among fans of the first Xenoblade Chronicles. While they're both very anime, the first game was much more drama focused, where the sequel takes a lot more inspiration from the comedy and fanservice side of anime. Very much Denser and Wackier. Not to say that it doesn't have serious moments too, but the difference in tone is pretty noticeable, and I can definitely see why it wouldn't be everyone's cup of tea.

I feel the gameplay itself may actually be better than the first game, but the poor tutorial system held it back until I looked into some guides. It feels like a lot of stuff is left vague, explained poorly, or mentioned too early to be understood; and the lack of a way to review them later is really crippling. Maybe the informants can help with that, but should you really need to spend in-game currency for a decent explanation of the game mechanics? Still, poorly explained though it may be, the combat is pretty fun once you understand it, and going back to obstacles once you have the appropriate abilities to clear them gives me a bit of the classic Zelda vibe I sorely missed in BotW.

Edited by FGHIK on Nov 27th 2020 at 12:47:54 PM

2 really suffered for good tutorials. It's just thrown at you in a big series of text at the start, with no visuals to help you put things together. I still don't understand a lot of how the game works.

You basically summed up Xenoblade 2 in a nutshell. I'm glad you got almost all of your rare blades on the drivers you wanted (don't tell us which ones they are and where they ended up; that could incite a flame war).

I don't think it would start a flame war, if someone tried to start anything it'd probably be a Single-Issue Wonk and be dealt with accordingly.

If it makes you feel better about the Megalance, I went tens of hours without an Earth Twin Rings needed for a specific merc mission.
Protip: Keep at least one of them around. They're needed for one of the more notorious Blade Quests in the game.

I much prefer the gameplay of the original over X and 2 for one reason in particular.

Each character actually feels very different from other character when playing as them, because their entire skillset is completely unique to them.

X and 2 suffered a lot on that front from so many things being interchangable between characters.

Edited by justinkal on Nov 27th 2020 at 9:45:22 AM