I need some help finding Basin cave in Satorl marsh to get the last radiant needed for the High Entia ritual that you have to do to get into the Bionis interior. Some guides say to go west from the Sororal statues, follow the river until you get to a short slope, go up that and then cross a bridge but I didn't find those guides helpful and ended up getting into an area with enemies that were above level 80 as well as other areas that didn't lead to Basin cave so please could someone help me?

I'd love to help but off the top of my head I really can't remember that. D:
If you can't find help then just keep searching around and you're bound to find it eventually.
At least you might go up a level or two on the way.

Sorry that I couldn't be of any help!

Look at this map. What you're looking for is probably that snaky river to the west of the statues (X: 1100-1200, Y: 800-900).

I must say the game simply rocks. It somehow manages to be grand in scale and still relatively down to earth at the same time. And by "down to earth" I don't mean the story is just "Evil robbot killed my girlfriend - destroy them all with my magic sword". It expands a lot beyond that - although depending on play style that might take some 30-40 hours - but manages to remain a grand adventure (so far) rather than becoming an over-engineered wannabe melodrama. Environments are among the best I've seen in any videogame. It's not so much the size, but rather the design and diversity. It's so much more than rolling hills or plains delimited by 3-4m high rock banks. Turning the fossilized bodies of two titans into the game's world was a brilliant idea. The real downside to the sheer size of each area is that traversing them at first actually takes a lot of time - until you've discovered enough landmarks to warp around conveniently.

My party is around lvl 68 at the moment. I've gone back to do a lot of sidequests. So far, the reward has been two additional Monado techniques that aren't related to the story. Already spent more than 80 hours and I've got the feeling that it's going to take 100+ if I keep actually doing those sidequests.

@Burny Thanks, I never noticed that river.

@Burny Now you made me want to play again, right now... But I can't because I'm going to head off to the Nintendo Connection Tour soon.

Just to let you know there's a xenoblade survey via email from club Nintendo to earn 50 stars, also this game might just replace Little Kings Story as my fav wii game.

So this might be relevent news

http://www.gamerankings.com/browse.html?site&cat=71&y...

admittedly, I don't exactly completely agree but this still amuses me.

I think it's overated, but seeing Lunar and Phantasy Star IV on the first page is great
my two favourite RPGs

Its fantastic to see XBC that high but I wish ToS was higher on that page and that TWEWY was even on that page.

ToS is actually pretty middle-of-the-road for the series, so I'd prefer it if ToS was lower and other games, such as ToV and ToA were higher.

I'll see how ToA compares to ToS when I get the 3DS version later this year which I'll probably be getting for Christmas but surely you weren't surprised when I said that were you? I'm sure I've mentioned many times how much I love that game and I've seen others who have played many Tales games and still like ToS the most.

Most of the people I've met who've played lots of Tales of Games say it's Middle of the road. Personally, I had trouble getting into the story. I just didn't like the way it portrayed its themes and I saw most of its twists coming a long time before they happened...and I'm usually oblivious to most twists. I also found its characters to be annoying, but I'd probably change my mind about them now that I'm more used to the series.

@Mickeymac I don't know anyone IRL who has played any Tales of games (unless a friend who played the demo of ToV and played ToS with me a bit counts) so I was basing what I said on comments that I had seen on various sites and whichever you mean I have seen people consider ToS as Middle of the road but I've seen more peole considering it the best in the series or just thinking its a great game but not quite as high as the best in the series. I personally really enjoyed the story of ToS and it has my favorite story in gaming and I think they did a good job with the themes of the games too. I can see what you mean with the the twists though but they did a better job with a few of them. I also thought it had a great cast of characters and it has some of my favorite characters in gaming and other Tales fans seem to really like the cast of this game from what I've seen too, Kratos and Genis especially seem to be popular characters. Also, How far did you get in the game? I'm asking this as I remember seeing a comment that you didn't complete it.

Savegame says I've been at it for 110+ hours - probably excluding the final boss fight - and I'm through. Very epic journey, outstanding game and a huge time sink. Deserves the scores it got. The story keeps expanding throughout the whole game and even has a bit of a surprise in store after the last boss fight.

I did a lot of sidequests (hence the playtime ), but didn't bother to hunt down and finish all of them. Especially those that open up, after you've been through "the core". Maybe I'll come back later to finish the remaining ones and to maximize the party's affinity and level.

Now, I've got two complaints. The first one doesn't bother me personally, but I know at least one person who is bothered by it. If you spend a lot of time not doing the main quests, but exploring and finishing sidequests, it's inevitable that your party will be overleveled for main quest bosses. 100+ hours of fun mean I don't care that I didn't have to retry each boss a dozen times because most weren't challenging. Completionists however will find that they can just waltz through such encounters. On the other hand, there are enough free roaming beasts that can give you a lot of challenge at any time.

The second - and my only real - complaint is the lack of ingame information about locations of monsters, items and NPCs. An ingame "monsterpedia" containing names, dropped items and locations+times of all previously encountered monsters would have been immensely helpful. The same goes for NPCs. When you're not yet familiar with a location, "18:00-6:00, Alcamoth" is just too unspecific, as "Alcamoth" is a huge space that takes upwards of 5 minutes just to get from one side to the other. It doesn't help that it has two floors where NPCs could be.

Thankfully, someone put a lot of work into this quest-"cheat-sheet":

Google docs (File -> Download as -> Excel)

I can only recommend this to anyone who plans on doing a lot of sidequests!

It's an absolute shame that NA won't bring Xenoblade over for all we know. Especially, as next year will be barren from a software point of view and the WiiU might be released anywhere between E3 and Christmas. However, European online shops probably won't mind a bit of extra sales and where there is a will, there is way, right?

The story has really been getting interesting but it seems like one of my favourite characters will betray me after what was being implied in two cutscenes. If he does, this would be the second game I've played where one of my favourite characters has betrayed me with the first being Tales of Symphonia. Also, while I'm not doing all the quests, I am doing quite a few and I'd like to do the two quests with secret Monado arts so could someone tell me where and when those quests can be done?

@mariofanatic128:

The first of the two additional Monado techniques can be found in Magna Forest. You'll find the technique book in a sarcophagus (in a locked building) as a part of a quest chain involving a Nopon on the Bionis Leg and his (gran?)daughter in Frontier village.

You will receive the second technique as a reward from a quest on the Fallen Arm.

I can't tell you the names of the quest-givers and prerequisites for the quest off the top of my head, but if you do a lot of quests in both areas and make sure to do the quests the two nopon on the Bionis leg give you, you should find them. You could also consult the document I linked in the post above.

Good luck!

Thanks, I'll use the document too. That should be really helpful.

I stumbled across that document a few days ago while trying to look up stuff.
It truly is helpful.

I just finished the game.
Now I'm sad.
I hate it when great games like that end.

Oh well... I guess I'll take a break for now and when I can be bothered I'll go through it again and get a lot of the stuff that I missed last time.

Oh, and the full soundtrack from the game is now on my 3DS (even if you can barely hear the 3DS's sound half the time).

Good long playthrough. There was a surprising little incidental exchange with an NPC that foreshadowed what I imagine willl be a pretty big plot point.

Spent ages doing side quests and building affinity between the team members. Now I've got Melia back I'm going to get her going on more quests with her team mates to improve her woeful indifference to everyone. As much as the battle script can get tired there are some surprise moments depending on the make up of the team. It's a shame Riki's child speak is so annoying when he's actually a decent member.

I've had some entertaining battles by mistakenly thinking I could just run past a bunch of enemies. I thought they would give up once I got far enough away but no, they ALL followed me and it got messy. Especially when a passing monster decided to chip in.

Exploring is still a joy. It's amazing how many locations are in this game and its secret hidey holes and hidden islands. Eryth Sea looked beautiful and I liked the FFVIII vibe I got from the design of Alcomoth. The tomb was a bit of an anti-climax. I was expecting more of a challenge and a deeper dungeon. Fun boss battle at least.

I'm starting to encounter the problem SKTTR mentioned where I have too much stuff. I'm afraid to get rid of it though as I know whatever I decide to bin will doubtlessly be the VITAL ingredient of a subquest. Speaking of which where can I find Dark Grapes and Fossil Monkeys? I've trekked through Tephra Cave and Makna Forest but no joy.