Xenoblade Chronicles 2

[Kikki]

So...Finished chapter 8. Rex is level...I think 67. And I still have 12 rare blades to find (and they're all random ones...I've already met every possible rare blade who comes through the story or a quest or fixed solution/location.)

That's no big deal, but...Kirie, you luck with them seems great. That or you just opened an insane number of crystals. Either way, you must have hit the cap on the number of blades you can bond with lots of times in the process. No? I have done so lots of times. I know how to raise the number of blades you can keep and have gotten to the second to last level...just one more increase in number to go.

But in the meanwhile, if you want/need to bond a new blade, how do you decide on which existing ones to dismiss?

I'm wondering because the most common blades are the ones who reoccur most frequently. They're the least useful, but they're also the ones you'll keep getting back even if you throw them out, wasting core crystals, since you can't get doubles so keeping a very common one would keep it from popping up yet again. So is it better to toss one of the better common blades when trying to find all the rares? Did you do anything in particular to help you get them all, or is it just pure luck with no possible way to influence it? (I used a legendary crystal, btw, and it got a stupid two or three crown common blade. Not even a really good common blade!)

[Genie9]

It was definitely interesting to read your opinions! Sorry if I overanalyzed things, I just thought certain aspects were off putting. I must say, I can't complain because I am 22 hours deep and still wanting to play more. I'm only on Chapter 4 with Rex and crew at level 28/29. I have unlocked 2 rare blades thus far, and I love the rare blade I got with Rex.

Combat is starting to make a lot more sense, and unlocking more blades with different elemental properties is a huge factor in helping me understand how the pieces are strung together.

You guys are so far ahead of me, I feel like I am dragging. But I don't have any other games in my backlog (besides beating Persona 5, which isn't going to happen soon), so I shouldn't complain.

[Bluie]

Well, i'm gonna be going away for 10 days without any social media (vacatiooooon~) so I won't be around to discuss the game for awhile.

I'm at the beginning of chapter 7 and i've started maining Tora. IDK why, but I got tired of playing as Rex and have ousted his from the party for awhile. Being the tank isn't so bad, Tora has a ton of HP and decent defense, so I just let Nia do the healing. Also, running around as Tora is pretty funny, the Camera is closer to the ground, making everything kinda 'bigger' and I can now watch him and Poppi dance together at any time. The later levels of Tiger Tiger are making me want that easy mode update though.

Have fun with the rest of the game, guys. Who knows if this thread will still be alive by the time I get back, but if I beat the game while i'm gone (probably not, gonna be doing stuff) i'll drop by and say so.

[Kikki]

I don't think you necessarily over-analyzed, Genie9. Things look different to people with different experiences, y'know? We all focus on different aspects because of the way we've been shaped as life goes on.

I just finished chapter 9, which seemed the shortest of all so far to me. Rex is currently Lvl 69.

Tora is fun to be your #1. He sings so much, lol. I like the way he opens chests. ♪What is in the booooooox? Sweets or treats or sooocks?♫ I think I'll be playing post-game a while to try to get other blades and level all the good ones up. Hopefully the new story to be added later with the DLC will be worth the effort

Have a great vacation, Bluie

EDIT: Turns out I'm missing 9 blades, not 12. Three less to bang my head over.

[RopeMaidenKirie]

@Ehppy - Hope you the game whenever you pick it up!!

@Genie - Nah no worries there, everyone is gonna have different opinions!

@Bluie - Have a nice vacation!

@Kikki - Oh I totally core grinded, haha. It took me a grind of 11 hours to get my last 4 blades, which was pretty rough.

I usually checked what field and battle skills they had, and would keep a few of each type (if they were an animal type, element, weapon etc) just depends on the blades you already have and what field skills you feel like you're lacking in atm. Now that I have all the rare ones, I can be a little more choosy about what I keep. But for the most part, you're going to have to open up a looooot of crystals, so it's best imo if you try and limit the amount of time you're going to be dealing with the common blades in the menus. By the end I was getting so tired of the grind, I'd just sort the list chronologically and just deleted the ones I just opened in a current session.

They say your chances of getting rare blades increase with the amount of the luck stat you have, and the amount of ideas (which are your bravery/trust/justice/compassion levels) so when you use a booster, you can have a bit of influence on the type of rare blade you might receive.

Bravery Booster - Fire/Water
Truth Booster - Wind/Ice
Compassion Booster - Electric/Earth
Justice Booster - Light/Dark

The last two rare blades I wanted to get were wind and ice respectively, so I only used truth boosters on a high truth ideas character to help increase my chance of pulling wind or ice blades from my cores. Of course it's all still very random, but anything helps!

[Kikki]

Thanks, Kirie...I've found 2 more of the rare blades, so I am now down to 7 left. But even having one driver with very high 'idea' and boosters and 396 luck, AND a legendary crystal, it's still hit or miss. I wish all of my common cores were legendaries, lol. The rate with those seems to be about one in three, at least from what I got. Guess I could level to max and then luck will be even higher. I wonder if it can hit 500?

And...I've finished the game. Of course, anything I said about the ending would be a huge spoiler, so I can't, lol. Still got lots of blade quests left to do and just a couple of regular side-quests that either require huge loads of money or high affinity with specific blades that I haven't paid much attention to, so the file may say I've put in about 115 hours, but I've got a lot of hours left if I want to complete all types of quest. (Though some of those hours were just letting the game run while missions finished when I was stuck for other progress.) Not sure how much I'll do, because a lot of it is kind of grindy at this point. I do want to do some more questing.

I do know now, though, what I would like the additional story they will add later on to be about. It probably won't be the full of what I'm hoping, but after the end, I have all kinds of things I'd like to see happen, so looking forward to finding out what kind of new content they'll give us.

Also interested in what NG+ features will be.

[RopeMaidenKirie]

Congrats on beating the game!!

Kikki I was going to ask something about end game if that's okay (spoilers)

Spoiler:

Does anyone leave the party after the end credits? I just want to know if I can beat the game and then do any of the stuff afterwards,
like heart to hearts and whatnot, or if I'll be locked out of the content because someone leaves for good.

Thanks!

[Kikki]

Thanks Okay, this isn't really a spoiler since it doesn't give away any actual story details, but the ending works this way...

Spoiler:

It's one of those games that when you finish it, it puts a star on your file and then resets you to right before the final battle, so that you can go back and continue with everything else if you have more to do. Personally I prefer games that let you finish the final battle and then continue on from there but I think I can understand why they didn't...it would have required a lot of revamping of dialogue and so on from NPCs and the like.

[RopeMaidenKirie]

Thanks so much! Glad I can continue on with the story and hopefully beat it in the next day or two. Chapter 9 started off pretty crazy lol

[Kikki]

I saw it in the other thread, but congrats on finishing, Kirie. I thought the end was good, though I believe of the 3 Xenoblade titles, overall XC2 remains my least favourite, though sit still ranks above games of most other series for me.

[RopeMaidenKirie]

Thanks Kikki! I'm still trying to digest fully what happened haha, that was some ending. It was my first Xeno game, so I'm looking forward to going back to the older ones sometime..hopefully they'll add backwards compatibility for them on the Switch since I no longer have a Wii U/Wii.

[Kikki]

You can play the first one on N3DS (that's where I was first introduced, anyway). Monolith Soft has said they'd like to do X on Switch, but no promises were made, just that if the opportunity came up, they'd be interested in discussing it. I think they probably won't port the first one to Switch, though.

It'd be a smart move and I think most people agree. X was probably the best game for the Wii U, or at least in the running for the best, and so few people ever owned a Wii U at all that a LOT of people missed out on playing it completely...there'd be a lot of new buyers And they did such a horrible job with the interface (tiiiiiiiiny text that a lot of people said they could barely read at all) and the sound (BMG so loud during cutscenes that you couldn't hear the dialogue, and it wasn't adjustable!) that a port would probably draw in a lot of people who already own the Wii U version, too. (I know some folks like that, myself, though I was okay with it on Wii U.)

I'm sure you did,cbut...you watched the end beyond the credits as well, right? I know a few people skipped the credits on BotW and then also ended up missing the extra scene they unlocked if they got the 'true' ending, so just thought I'd ask. Just in case. But then, if I know how often that trick gets pulled (including more ending after the credits finish rolling), I'm sure most others do, as well.

[RopeMaidenKirie]

Oh yup I definitely stayed for that scene! I'm not sure how I feel about it actually.

Yeah I probably should pick up a N3DS sometime (I've got my old gold Zelda one) or just pick up a super cheap old Wii since I actually have the game already, just never got around to playing it before we got rid of the hardware lol.

I'm really excited to see what the DLC adds for story content in NG+, especially with out some of the story stuff ended up. I really, really hope all of the blades and their affinity charts carry over, or I'm going to be a tad bit sour lol

[Kikki]

Yeah, going through all the blade-related stuff for a second time would just be a huge burden, not fun at all, so it'd be great if you could carry that over. I mean, it's kind of a burden the FIRST time around, so doing it a second time...ugh. I hope they come up with good carry-over and unlocks for NG+

BotW's DLC content was a big disappointment for me since it claimed to be 'additional story', but it's really, imo, far more about additional battle challenges with verrrry little expansion to the actual story of the game. So, I'm hoping that the 'extra story' added to XC2 will not be a disappointment as well. I'd like to see some of what happens after the end, or possibly a return of certain persons.

I had mixed feelings about the full end of XC2, as well. Didn't hate it, but felt like they cheaped out a bit on a few points. Maybe the DLC will cover some of the stuff that felt 'off' to me, but I'm not going to hold my breath, cuz being disappointed is no fun

[Bluie]

Woop, i'm back from vacay!

Annnnd I beat Xenoblade 2 while I was gone! I was spending christmas with my fiance and his family and the two of us were playing a lot of video games together. One morning he saw me playing Xenoblade 2 on my Switch and said 'what's this? It looks fun!' and then he went and bought a copy later that day! I had to hide my screen for the rest of vacay after that, not wanting to spoil anything.

Anyways, the game itself and it's ending, I found it highly enjoyable. I think it's a toss up between this and Breath of the Wild for most hours played on a game this year. I'll keep stuff in spoilers from here on out.

Spoiler:

I feel like this game was more of a character based game more so than it's plot driving it forward. Everyone eventually follows Rex because it'd be best for them. Tora wants to be friends with drivers, Nia is finding her way and wants closure on Torna(the group), Morag goes because of her instincts(and curiosity) tell her that Rex is the key to her county's survival, and Zeke went from spy to tagging along because, I actually don't remember lol. I hardly used Zeke.

Anyways, my favourite character was Morag. I enjoyed her reactions to may heart to hearts + her design is great. I also really like Poppi, especially her later story scenes (the last scene broke my heart when she started weeping ): ).

My final party(This is not including their perm blades) was Nia with Kora and Nim, Morag with Aegaeon and Finch, and Tora with all 3 Poppis; Healer, Tank, and Attacker respectfully. I played as Nia punching out the heals while both Morag and Tora took the aggro. Was a great setup. People where saying that Morag can't tank. PSSSSH, she a freaking champ.

Aegaeon and Brighid are my favourite blades design and character wise (I ALSO MAY SHIP THEM, IM NOT SORRY). I got almost all of the rare blades. I'm missing four, one of which is KOSMOS, which suuucks cause I really wanted her lol.

Also, one last thing, I AM STILL SALTY OVER VANDAM'S DEATH. He was a walking death flag a soon as he was introduced, but I still adored him. He was like the team's dad and I would have loved for him to stick around. I DO think it's cool that Rex canonically has 3 blades that join him through the storyline (Pyra/Mythra, Roc, and Nia), but I'll always be upset about Vandam.

So I noticed that New Game+ isn't out yet. I'm interested if it'll let us keep our levels and acquired rare blades, because if no on the latter, I can't see myself opening thousands of cores again just to get the blades I already grinded hours for.