Current Events > Gonna start Xenoblade Chronicles on Switch *preemptive spoilers*

(+) Yeah! (+)

basically everything I know about this game is from Smash. Haven't played a JRPG in quite a while. I heard somebody in another topic say not to worry much about side quests unless they're kinda on your way, so I'll keep that in mind. Glorious 540p here I come

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love this game. plan on picking up the definitive version when I finish this playthrough of Persona 5 Royal.

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Just finished it last week and put 125 hours into it. Have fun!

RIP opening chapter JRPG guy (presumably)

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Jabodie posted...

basically everything I know about this game is from Smash. Haven't played a JRPG in quite a while. I heard somebody in another topic say not to worry much about side quests unless they're kinda on your way, so I'll keep that in mind. Glorious 540p here I come

What?
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SamWincester posted...

What?

It runs at a dynamic resolution with a Mac of 720p, and drops around 540p often. I think the max on handheld is ~540p.

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Play blind. Side Quests are tedious and uninteresting mostly consisting of fetch quests and bounty hunt,save those for replay,

Don't worry about your equipment too much. Just loot whatever you find and you'll be staying up-to-date.

Avoid spoiler. Pretty meh game tbh.


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Jabodie posted...

SamWincester posted...

What?

It runs at a dynamic resolution with a Mac of 720p, and drops around 540p often. I think the max on handheld is ~540p.

Darn. I got roughly 2/3s through the original, loved it, and shelved it. I was hoping to experience it again in HD...
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Don't worry too much about side quests as there's nothing too important if you don't do it. There are some that will get locked out as you advance through the game but there's an indicator of which quests those apply to. And a large majority of the quests that you can get locked out of don't happen until the end of the game anyways.

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The quests are a really good way of building your ancillary XP in expert mode so you can keep your level controlled. You can add or subtract levels up to a maximum of your accrued XP. I'm level 73 right now, and I can go up to level 80.

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SamWincester posted...

Darn. I got roughly 2/3s through the original, loved it, and shelved it. I was hoping to experience it again in HD...

There's still graphical enhancements, and it's higher res than the original at least. But it definitely looks blurry on my 4k TV haha. Apparently its resolution is on par or a little better than Xenoblade 2 did, if you've played that.

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Alucard188 posted...

The quests are a really good way of building your ancillary XP in expert mode so you can keep your level controlled. You can add or subtract levels up to a maximum of your accrued XP. I'm level 73 right now, and I can go up to level 80.

That's interesting. I'll just accept and do any I come across. Maybe I'll prioritize missable quests, maybe I won't care lol.

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Alucard188 posted...

The quests are a really good way of building your ancillary XP in expert mode so you can keep your level controlled. You can add or subtract levels up to a maximum of your accrued XP. I'm level 73 right now, and I can go up to level 80.

oh they added this to the definitive version? cool, I liked that in XC2.

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Ah, the nice feeling of exploring a town in a JRPG. Feels nice.

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The only side quests I would highly suggest to focus on are the ones with a timer on them, meaning they will be missable if you get too far into the story. Otherwise don't go out of your way to finish them since you will accept so many of them that you are bound to finish some of them just doing the story.

Topple is very important, especially when you unlock a certain gameplay feature that can potentially save a characters life.

Story starts off slow and does get better, but barely. It's one of those JRPG that gets exposition heavy near the end of the game.

Don't be afraid to explore, the game rewards you for doing it by giving your extra exp, sp, and ap for every new discovery.

The OST (like the second game) is pretty awesome and the definitive edition does do nice touches to the original OST.

Overall, it's a fun experience. Don't expect something that will blow you away, but I definately had more fun with XC1 than XC2.

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The VA in this game is surprisingly decent tbh.

And I'll keep it in mind. With a 60+ hour game I kinda expect sparse story. I enjoyed FF15 well enough, I'm sure I'll be fine here.

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Do I need to play as a character for their affinity with other characters to level? Like to i need to play a either Fiora or Reyn to level their affinity to each other, or will it still happen while playing as Shulk?

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tag

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Jabodie posted...

Do I need to play as a character for their affinity with other characters to level? Like to i need to play a either Fiora or Reyn to level their affinity to each other, or will it still happen while playing as Shulk?

Very good question.

There are 3 ways to increase affinity:

1. Take them to battle. When you kill any enemy, do a critical, topple, etc. you will get a circle prompt. Hit the B on the ring will net all 3 of your characters affinity points. So yes to answer your question, all 3 of your characters will grow affinity together in combat. Do note that the if you can time it correctly and hit the outer white ring, your characters will get even more affinities. But I honestly wouldn't aim for that, just make sure to hit the prompt when it shows up to gain affinity. The best way for this to happen more often is fighting multiple enemies at once imo.
2. The second way is to accept quests and finish them. Note that not all quests will give affinities, only some. This is the one where only your leader will gain affinity points with the partners, but the partners will not receive any from each other. So kind of switch certain characters off if you want 2 pairs of characters to get affinity's with each other.
3. The last are the heart to hearts. I would suggest saving before doing this because there is some "trial and error" that goes into it. Basically during the heart to hearts, there will be 2 times when you have to pick a dialogue, each with 2 selections. One of the selections will increase the affinity by a lot and the other one will take away a lot of the affinity. Pick the dialogue by how the ACTUAL CHARACTER will respond, not how you would respond. If you pick the wrong dialogue, just load the save file and try again.

Hope this helps lol. I used to do these guides on JRPG's when I was in highschool with a lot of free time on my other account before it got purged.

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Good to know.

Also RIP Fiora. I can't tell if this is a fake out, but if not, RIP.

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Jabodie posted...

Good to know.

Also RIP Fiora. I can't tell if this is a fake out, but if not, RIP.

Yes, she did get ripped. Like a hot knife through butter!
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RIP to all the affinity

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Phantom_Nook posted...

Yes, she did get ripped. Like a hot knife through butter!

Didn't metal face say something like that lol?

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Tried portable. Resolution is a little rough so I'm back on TV.

Just beat the spider. I'm liking the battle system so far.

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Should i be worried about time attacks?

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Jabodie posted...

Should i be worried about time attacks?

I've played the original and beaten DE, I still haven't touched them. I wouldn't bother unless you're bored.

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Trading seems like a really easy way to upgrade gear. Like the stuff I'm getting at this camp trading bull shit is significantly better than my old stuff lol

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Trying to decide if I want to use the default look for characters or just let them rock their armor...

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Prestoff posted...

Didn't metal face say something like that lol?

yeah, that's what I was alluding to lol

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I would be doing none of these side quests without the mini map markers lol. Definitely glad they added them.

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Man it would be nice if this was higher res <_<

Just did a bunch of timed quests for the camp. This is a pretty chill game. About to go to the ether cave i think

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I spent a lot of time today doing random bull shit in this game. I'm probably like halfway or 60% to the bottom of the Ether caves.

I'm having a good time with it. I can't say the game play is super engaging, but I enjoy exploring and leveling various aspects of my characters. I like the characters so far tbh. I feel like the quarantine has elevated my enjoyment for a straightforward, upbeat adventure type experience.

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Gameplay doesn't change much, so expect the same thing except enemies having some more bs (that your monado can overcome). But yeah, think of the gameplay more of a single player MMO if anything. JRPG's in general are great for quarantine. I think the only JRPG I couldn't finish was DQ11, otherwise it's been great.

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Jabodie posted...

I would be doing none of these side quests without the mini map markers lol. Definitely glad they added them.

As someone that spent far too many hours on the original, just being able to open up the map and see any quests available is an absolute godsend.

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Put down Xord. I already know thanks to Smash that Metal Face is probably that dude from the beginning (most annoying thing about spirits is the upgrades spoils character transformations). Idk if that's important, but the scene hinted that the faced machines are converted humans, and possibly every Mechon was formerly a human. I don't usually get hung up on spoilers too bad though.

Anyway, got my boy Dunban. I 100% thought this dude wasn't going to make it out of the intro lol.

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DeathVelvien posted...

As someone that spent far too many hours on the original, just being able to open up the map and see any quests available is an absolute godsend.

This so much. I've beaten the game before, not in the mood to personally hunt down every quest and quest item.

I'm almost done with DE myself. In the last area. Maybe do some extra stuff and cleaning up before moving on to FC then potentially replaying the main game on ng+. Not sure if I want to do everything this playthrough even though I nearly have to this point.

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I also got spoiled about Faces from Snash, but I'm not sure how I wouldn't have been able to figure it out even without Smash. Xord alone makes it obvious.
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Yeah, on the subject of subquests, if you do nothing else, I do recommend you use a guide for getting each character's 4th & 5th skill tree. Also Shulk has two optional Monado arts that can be quite useful. The Colony 6 reconstruction also has quite a few bonuses behind it as well.

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Love the characters, story, and music.

But didnt love the gameplay so much. I just dont like turn-based or pseudo-turn-based combat (basically when you dont actually control your character). It makes me irrationally angry seeing my characters weapon make contact with an enemy but it being considered a miss.

Towards the end of the game, I found myself having to do a TON of grinding which I also dont care for (if I go through areas fighting every single enemy I come across, that should be enough to get through at least the main game without much difficulty).

Still, its a fine game. Im just at a point in my life where I dont have time to devote to games like this right now.

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rexcrk posted...

Towards the end of the game, I found myself having to do a TON of grinding which I also dont care for (if I go through areas fighting every single enemy I come across, that should be enough to get through at least the main game without much difficulty).

I don't believe this. I'm doing that on expert mode and I'm still a bit overleveled. And on expert I can lower or raise my level if i want to. On casual you would be even more overleveled for the enemies if you did any decent number of sidequests. Plus it's easier.

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KainWind posted...

I don't believe this. I'm doing that on expert mode and I'm still a bit overleveled. And on expert I can lower or raise my level if i want to. On casual you would be even more overleveled for the enemies if you did any decent number of sidequests. Plus it's easier.

He probably just didn't do side quests. I mostly run past every monster I seeif it's not quest related so far. I had to grind one level to beat the tentacle robot, but others it seems like a good way to grind.

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Looked up some technical details and apparently this game uses one of those Vaseline type AA solutions which makes the game look a lot horror blurrier than its actual rendering resolution. Unfortunate since it does into the high 300s on handheld.

Also this game apparently uses the lowest clock speed for portable which is odd, since many games now use the highest clock speed. Apparently it makes the resolution considerably higher. Reminds me of the old days where I'd five the highest clock shows in my psp lol.

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Also I realized lowering your level gives you considerably more exp per enemy. So keeping your level down will ironically help you keep up with levels, and probably make you "overlevel" faster. Pretty neat system.

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Quick heads-up: If you're planning on playing the additional content after finishing the main game, you'll have to do some of the major side-quests in endgame first, otherwise you might not get part of what's going on.

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Almost done with the swamp, took a detour to colony 6. Honestly it's kinda mind blowing this game didn't ship with expert mode and quest markers originally. The game feels 100% like they're essential features lol. Any tips on using Dunban? I tried to sub him for Shulk and Reyn, but it just feels like he's supposed to synergize better with another character or something.

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Wasn't for me but hopefully you enjoy it

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How did they build so many houses from a couple volf hides? >_<

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Just don't wander into any places in the swamp looking too empty. *nefarious laugh*
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got six party members now. Debating whether I should go to the sea or dick around in the forest for a few hours.

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