Topic: Xenoblade Chronicles X: Life on Mira.

[Evan_B]

I do like how every class has you approach battles differently. For example, the middle tree focuses either on heavy HP and TP usage or extreme range and combo attacks, which I think are another novel addition to the game.

[Khushrenada]

Don't worry about finding those people to add as your 4th. Those characters don't level you unless they come with you. Go pick up randoms or use the scout computer to find someone to fill the spot, that way you can get peeps higher level than you are to help out.

I'm pretty sure when I went to recruit Doug and Irina to my party, I saw that they were at a higher level than the rest of my party. That's why I decided to leave them behind and stick with Lin, Elma and Gwin since they could use more levelling up to reach the strength of Doug and Irina. So seeking them out should help. Plus, there seem to be this missions around town where you need to have an affinity level built up with the characters in order to take them on (the square handshake symbols). Thus dragging those characters along to build up their affinity is helpful so its good to know where they are.

[Enner]

My package... so far away. Well, more like a day away on it's 3-day silent journey across the country.

Reading everyone's journey through the beginning of the game has be a bit jealous and super excited. SOON!

[ejamer]

My package... so far away. Well, more like a day away on it's 3-day silent journey across the country.

Reading everyone's journey through the beginning of the game has be a bit jealous and super excited. SOON!

Really hope your copy arrives soon.  My game just got here tonight, and the first hour or two has been like putting on a pair of comfortable old pants, fresh out of the dryer. The game feels comfortable and familiar in all the right ways - something that I'm keen to sit down and enjoy for many, many hours to come.

[Evan_B]

I am very much enjoying the variety on quests. The affinity missions in particular are SO MUCH BETTER than the original game's heart-to-hearts.

[Enner]

Hurrah! The game is finally in my hands. Looking over the Special Edition, It looks like I paid $30+ for a hefty art book as the <1 GB flash drive and the art card are poor extras. I'm okay with this.

NNID: EnnerBlade
And I've joined the Mediators due to my major.

Quick first impression: Yep, this is a game I want to get lost in. The one bummer is that the game is a bit busy in how you interact in it which makes the small font hurt more.

[Evan_B]

Has anyone picked up some of the non-story party members? I've enlisted H.B. (Though I've rarely used him because he's such a prick) and Alexa, whose voice acting is quite good.

Also on the way to getting my Skell lisence- dear god, that checklist...

[NeoStar9X]

I'm increasing enjoying how the world is setup. Most game worlds are clearly designed for the player in regard to how they'll go from A to B, etc. While some of that is present here it increasingly feels you are entering the territory of these creatures and that they've staked out their own corner of an area.  You have some just grazing and others that seems like they're actively patrolling their borders.  The npcs actually talks about this and how you really are forcing these creatures out of their habitats. It's one thing to say it though and another for the game world to actually reflect that and to make you feel that really is the case.

I really like that in order to get to some areas you have to sneak pass or rush pass some creatures. I like to imagine it as if they've found a good and dry spot and were strong enough to take it and keep it from all the other creatures in the area. So you have to go through their territory to get where you need to go and back to creatures that are more your level. Love stuff like this.

Working towards being abel to start chapter 6 at the moment.

[oohhboy]

I am way pass the bit where you get Skells, but the Skells really provide that "**** you" factor when you are allowed to take on those huge enemies that you had to tip toe around early on. You're no invincible, but you offensive and defensive power rises massively outside of certain Arts combos.

They are also a massive money sink especially if you run out of insurance on one. Buying and equipping one can cost a million credits no to mention the upgrades you need to get. I think this is the only RPG I know of that money is actually valuable outside of MMOs. Of course, if you are willing to grind for parts you can equip for free, but the dropped parts tend not to be as good as store brought then there is the cost of fuel which slows down your AM upgrades.

[Khushrenada]

Has anyone picked up some of the non-story party members? I've enlisted H.B. (Though I've rarely used him because he's such a prick) and Alexa, whose voice acting is quite good.

Also on the way to getting my Skell lisence- dear god, that checklist...

Nope. I haven't even played the game since Tuesday last week. I thought I'd be diving back into it on the weekend but then various things came up in life. I think I'll finally get the chance tonight to sink some time back into it though. Not to worried though. Always knew I'd probably have more time to play this heavily during the Christmas break so anytime before then is just bonus.

[Oedo]

If you think H.B. is bad, just wait until you meet some of the later non-story characters you can recruit. He's annoying, but some of the others are deplorable to the point where you want absolutely nothing to do with them.

And yeah I would definitely keep in-game characters in your party as much as possible. Building affinity is fairly time consuming and there are a lot of these quests in the game. It's gotten to a point where I'm severely overleveld for most of them because I can't keep building up affinity with everyone fast enough. I'd kick Elma and Lin at every available opportunity since they're required a lot and you naturally max them out fairly early.

[Soren]

There's always a good reason to cycle around your party members...

[Enner]

Just finished Chapter 3 and now I have opened up the full suite of features for a Skell-less BLADE member. To any one still starting out, I recommend finishing the first three chapters as fast as possible to unlock the neat network stuff. Don't be like me and delay!

The network features are an odd, weird thing. The cooperative Squad Missions appear to be slight and sectioned-off "kill everything" missions from the one I played. But it was neat to run around with another live player killing and looting things. The BLADE reports, Squad Tasks, and other network features seems to be extra things to get loot from, but I like the feeling of there being a faint presence of other players. That was the design goal according to the Iwata Asks.

[Enner]

The downside of this big and open game is seeing the sprawl become a mess. This is not helped by a lack of information or guidance at critical points. RFN episode 456 has been experiencing this difficulty with Lin's Affinity Mission. I got my first whiff of it when I looked at the prerequisites for Story Mission 5. To my luck, I have explored enough of NLA to have the required Affinity Mission show up on FrontierNav. I can imagine a person's frustration in this situation if they have never poked around in the NLA's commercial district.

http://time.com/4149809/xenoblade-chronicles-x-director-tetsuya-takahashi/?xid=tcoshare
"5 Things Xenoblade Chronicles X Director Tetsuya Takahashi Told Us"

Highlights:

Xenoblade Chronicles X was deliberately made to have less of the philosophizing Takahashi is known for. This decision came from the difficulty of XCX being Monolith Soft's first high definition game.

Takahashi considers "the entire world to be my main field of battle" with the games he creates.

“I tend to get bored with things pretty easily, so I’d like to keep creating things with different approaches every time,” says Takahashi. “Along those lines, I’d definitely like my next project to look and feel pretty different from this one. The ‘Xeno’ name, by the way, really just exists to make it clear that these are Tetsuya Takahashi productions.”

Also, here's a PDF copy of the game's manual.

[Evan_B]

Honestly, the game encourages you to explore and I don't see any problem with that being the main focus. If you haven't explored New Los Angeles by chapter five, I'm quite certain you're playing the game wrong.

The tough part of those prerequisites, for me, was getting 25% of Oblivia explored. There was a whole chunk of it I never thought to peek around, but man, it was a struggle there for a bit.

Kicking major ass in a team of three Skells is very rewarding. I wonder how it's going to feel after I get 4. Also, HOLY CRAP NAGI IS A BADASS?!

[Oedo]

I had the credits roll on the story last night. The last chapter and the ending is REALLY cool, but left me feeling conflicted at the same time. I'm looking forward to more people finishing the story cuz it should make for an interesting discussion. Hopefully the RFN guys do a spoiler-cast.

I'm tempted to go back to some of the older Xeno games after reading that X is influenced by those more than Chronicles was. That said, as much as I love X, I do hope they go back to a more story driven game with the next entry in the series.

[lolmonade]

Curiosity got the best of me after beating MGSV last week, and I went ahead & picked this up at Target, was a little concerned if I waited too long that it'd be difficult to find a disc copy.


Anyone have input on how much time I should plan on for my first session?  Already downloaded the packs off the e-shop over the weekend, so all set with that.

[oohhboy]

About 4 hours might do it. That should be enough time for it to stop holding your hand.

[Enner]

To reiterate, you will want to complete the first three Story Chapters as quickly as possible. That will unlock the bulk of the systems that are used in the game's play loops. To put it bluntly, you'll want to start earning those reward tickets as soon as you can, if only to have them.

Don't get distracted by Basic Missions from the Mission Board (feel free to load up on them as the logging cap is 20) or even the Normal Missions you pick up from NPCs. Practice and grind as much as you need to finish Chapter 3.

After that... Mira is there for you to decide.

Well, actually, you'll want to level up your Mechanical field skill to as high as you can so you can place FrontierNav points like no tomorrow. From there, you'll want to start placing mining probes in areas with high production, research probes in areas with high revenue, and storage probes in low-rank areas. Getting in a steady stream of Miranium and credits can make your exploration expeditions easier.

Getting probes? They can only be found in Treasure Boxes or as mission rewards. Don't fret too much; you'll find enough just by exploring and killing.

[TOPHATANT123]

I've played 20 hours so far and I'm absolutely in love, I won't go into too much detail as there isn't much that hasn't already been said, but in the words of Kyle Bosman it just gives me good vibes. My favourite improvement over Chronicles is the fashion slots, in the first game I always avoid using stupid looking armour even if It is really good, but now I can use whatever I want and not look like a monstrosity, especially now that left arm and right arm are equipped independently.

[pokepal148]

I'm pretty sure i've lost like ten hours of progress to the fact that this game doesn't seem to have an auto save function despite the fact that everything about it suggests it should.

[Oedo]

This game is managing to deliver "holy ****" moments for me well past the 100 hour mark. You think you've seen it all and then a late affinity quest forces you to find something that most people would never think to look for. I haven't even gotten to the concurrent multiplayer and Nemesis stuff that Syrenne talked about on the last RFN yet (in part because the higher level skells are so much more expensive).

[TOPHATANT123]

Any one know how treasure deal works?

Also today I learnt that there are actually heart to hearts in the game. You get them from NLA rumours then it will pop up as a new icon on the map, remove that person from the party and go to the location and you get to have a heart to heart conversation.

[Enner]

I'm pretty sure i've lost like ten hours of progress to the fact that this game doesn't seem to have an auto save function despite the fact that everything about it suggests it should.

Sadly, you have to remember to save periodically in this game. I vaguely recall Xenoblade Chronicles auto-saving upon every landmark visited, though I may be incorrect.

Any one know how treasure deal works?

If some one offers a Treasure Deal, you can hit the "-" button to be put in a lottery roll for that item. You can offer Treasure Deals yourself in the spoils screen after a battle. Usually you can only offer gear and such.
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Digging in to some Normal missions and Affinity missions has been really fun. The stories they tell a bit banal so far, but I've had some surprises. Do check out the Normal missions around the church and water purification plant.

The aspects that are proving to be the worst of the game are the poor and random drop rates for monster parts and material pick ups. Much has been lamented over Beagflea Squashes, but I've come across mission critical monster parts that simply do not show up in the spoils screen as much as I would like. Being at the mercy of RNG was bad in the Xenoblade Chronicles and it is worse now in Xenoblade Chronicles X when a lot of missions rely on getting stuff.

Silver lining: it is an excuse to run around in the beautiful world more and kill more indigens. Thankfully, I'm still finding that to be a lot of fun.

[Triforce Hermit]

I don't think Xenoblade Chronicles had any auto saving.


Really, coming from someone who completed 90% of the first Xenoblade, RNG wasn't that bad (I remember only one item piece of armor with obscure drop rate that I never got from Aginratha) and if you needed, you could go trading with people and you could almost always find someone who had the item. I am sad to see that is taken out of X because I used that system a ton and that is the biggest disappointment so far.


But I just got to Oblivia. This game is an obsessive blast. I am very happy with everything else they have done with the game so far aside from ditching trading. I see this taking up the next few months like Xenoblade Chronicles did.


Edit: Also, what do I do with Squad reward tickets?