Topic: Xenoblade Chronicles 2

@Ryu_Niiyama I suppose if you didn't like one, then you wouldn't like the other. They are virtually the same character: OTT prince, yelling random stuff about heroism at the top of their lungs, waving a sword around with a ridiculous name, etc.. I agree with and forgot about the two Mòrag examples that you mentioned (it's been a month since I played, sorry). I may be misremembering again, but I found Mòrag to just be a semi-typical high ranking solider as a character, with little development. If you like her as a character, then that's great for you. I acknowledge and agree with some of your gripes with Zeke, yet I still enjoy his character, so don't let me encourage you to dislike Mòrag.

Meanwhile I love all the characters here- Yeah, Morag is my favorite because I find her to be the one that is most... 'interesting' in term of development? I dunno, I find that I enjoyed how her relationship with the Emperor is like that and it didn't go uh... like other books or LNs or something.

Really love the others though, they have their own moments and everything, and I like they dynamics. In the end, I just think that these group are great and I love them.

@darkfenrir When I finally got to play this game and figured out who your avatar was....xmas tree lights!

@NinjaAceTrainer I had a long reply that got deleted...ill knit it back together later.
EDIT: Ok, Morag had a decently fleshed out backstory from what I could tell. She was taken from her father (not sure if he died or she was just adopted because the past emperor didn't have kids) and raised to be empress. We have no clue about her mom because writers are lazy and usually omit the mom unless she shows up in story for a nurturing role or to die/be injured as a plot device so I'm assuming she died in child birth unless something else came out in a heart to heart.

Since Kagutsuchi is a royal treasure as well as the most powerful weapon in the empire she is usually wielded by the royal family. So we have a highly likely chance that a orphaned child was tasked to awaken a blade that could have easily killed her had she not resonated and then when the past emperor sired a desired son she was kicked out of the role that she was raised for. Of course having only her cousin whom she treated as a brother as they have no one else (current emperor's personality and relative stability in power likely means he lost his father -as usual nothing on his mom so I'm assuming childbirth death- rather early) and being bonded to the most prized blade in the land, Morag did the only thing left to her; she became a retainer. Obviously given her nature, she worked hard for her role as special inquisitor but the fact remains that she is doing it because she has nothing else. That lack of choice doesn't mitigate her loyalty to her homeland, family and to Kagutsuchi herself (they obviously share at the very least the closest thing Morag has to a deep friendship in addition their role as battle partners).

Even still she is quite amusing despite the fact that she should be burdened by a lack of purpose. She and kagutsuchi tend to draw that out of each other. The heart to heart in argentum was hilarious and the one in lutheraina about blade eating was poignant and amusing. I'll also admit I find Morag to be extra funny because she is obviously a Takarazuka expy (all those grand hand gestures and pauses...I don't know if i should swoon or laugh) and I'm a 'Zuka fan. Trust me nothing you can say can make me dislike Morag.

Yeah, Dagas is definitely my least favorite Blade. As soon as his introduction was over I was like "Noooope!", lol.

Wow... So much dislike for Dagas. I wasn't fond of him at first, but warmed to him after seeing just how comically out of touch he is with everything. I found Sheba to be much worse as a character, because of the way that she constantly disregards the male party members and acts superior to them. It makes more sense with her Japanese personality, but I still didn't find her fixation on money to be a redeeming character trait. I also disliked Dahlia, not just because if the 'sex-object blade' aspect, though that is part of it, but also because her blade quest made no sense whatsoever to me. The kid's voice was annoying and slow, and she called Dahlia a 'pretty lady' and commented on her 'refined' way of speaking. I don't find Dahlia to be pretty, and perhaps this is because I am British in an area where the accent is considered to be posh, but I don't think that she speaks in a refined way in the slightest. She sound like an utter country bumpkin to me, but that's just my opinion. If I had to rank them, I'd say that Dahlia is the worst.
Spoilers for Mor Ardain ahead:
As for villains, without a doubt Muimui is the worst. As soon as you see Tora's flashback, thanks to Muimui's unique design, I knew that he was the masked killer straight away. Atleast he had some plot relevance, even though it only lasted for about half an hour.

Can't say I dislike any of the characters, to be honest. Gameplay-wise I'm very disappointed with Tora though. I love his character but there's not really much motivating me to choice him as my tank over Morag - being unable to bond with blades makes him uninteresting to me, and Tiger Tiger is too much of a hassle.

@AlternateButtons It's still a very repetitive and distracting game that I don't particularly fancy playing in a game that I bought for its story and open world.

While I'm not that good at Tiger Tiger, I do wish more games had games inside the games. It reminds me of the Gamecube era when you'd unlock old NES games by doing certain things in the main game like Star Fox Assault had unlockable Xevious and Metroid Prime had unlockable Metroid.

I played Tiger Tiger at Easy - Level 1, which makes it sliiiiiiightly easier to train up Tora. He's now quite the powerhouse.

Had to do it since I decided to go with double tank team lol.

(Poor Zeke, never seeing the light of day as my teammate)

@Snaplocket Rip him. I really liked him as a character, but in gameplay... I guess he just fell since mythra was just too op once you maxed her affinity chart lmao

I run Rex, Tora, and Zeke with no healer Blades. The only healing I have is with crit-heal, Rex's Anchor Shot, or KOS-MOS's level 2 Special Art, which allows me to do the most damage. And even if you want to play it safe during the main story, you can absolutely run Zeke along Rex and your tank of choice if you have a healer Blade like Chapter 7 Blade or Ursula. Or you can run Poppi with group-heal Special Arts. Or do some weird thing like constantly reviving with building the party gauge extremely quickly. Your choice.

Zeke is still a very good choice, but you have to balance survivability and DPS to make the most out of him. Honestly, I got the least use out of Morag, because Tora can output so much more damage while being an effective dodge-tank (he doesn't need to just be a spongy tank, he can dodge attacks almost as well as Morag if you set up Poppi just right). Morag falls pretty hard compared to everyone else, despite her still being fun to play as.

Zeke is also the superior attacker over Rex during Chapter 7.

Playing as him is also really fun, he's my second favorite character to play as behind Tora. With Dynamic Spark Sword and ULFS Max, you can literally just spam those two ad infinitum with two 0.4 Arts recharge pouch items while outputting ridiculous amounts of damage. And let's not even mention running Ether Cannons with KOS-MOS or Herald. Or his amazing DPS with Zenobia which can potentially be better crit-heal than Mythra.

Mythra may have really awesome crit-regen and great skills, but her Special Arts are really bad which sometimes really sucks during Chain Attacks. Especially her level 4 Special Art, goodness that just does pitiful amounts of damage.

@Snaplocket Tbh, even if you run a holy trinity there's a lot to like about Zeke anyway. Greataxes are really good and he still hits like a truck with those and Pandoria. His Ether Cannon Arts are also really good. It's also easier to get the damage boosts from some of Zeke's Arts like Dynamic Spark Sword, which just needs you to be in front of any enemy, or ULFS Max which can really destroy Toppled things (Nia can Break while Tora or Morag can Topple) or Blowdown things while providing good AoE, then Launch with Pandoria. And like I said, there's quite a bit of ways to make use of Zeke in your party, some methods more gimmicky than others though.

He may attack slowly with Pandoria, but he still has a crazy amount of potential.

@AlternateButtons Sacred Arrow only works outdoors. A tutorial in Chapter 4 says that, and a cutscene in that chapter shows getting around that in story.

@AlternateButtons It's just area dependent, so if you're outdoors (like Temperantia and I think places like Tantal), you can use it, and if you're indoors (like most of endgame), you can't use it. Basically, I guess if the lighting is clearly differentiated between day and night, I'm not sure on this detail. That said, it is explained via story reasons as Sacred Arrow uses Mythra's artifice to fire from above, and using it causes a lot of collateral damage.

It's still a damning limitation anyway, as Sacred Arrow also charges up MUUUCH slower than other level 4 Special Arts while still not doing that much in the first place.

At least they look awesome though. I really can't wait to see Pneuma and Torna Blades' level 4 Special Arts.

And yeah, tutorials not being able to be revisited is such a terrible omission, though considering the game's development issues I guess it wasn't really up to choice.

Yeah, with the UI Designer leaving... and 3 Programmers leaving...

They have small team, so the impact of one or three leaving is much more profound vs most of other AAA game release

@AlternateButtons Switch to Pyra if you really need to get a level 4 out for any reason indoors. Though there's not much of that since they have none of the beneficial effects or bonuses of other specials. The only real thing they're good for is abusing the party invincibility that comes with the cinematic.

It's interesting how gameplay-wise, Mythra has less potential but more consistent damage and vice-versa for Pyra, when you'd kind of expect the opposite. Regardless, they complement each other with the gameplan of Mythra building specials rapidly for Pyra to unleash her crit-boosted level 3 for massive damage. And if you use the former to the fullest, you just might get away with using nothing but that special for fire combos.

Personally, I don't see how Rex's Master Driver privileges put him THAT far ahead of other attackers. They're nifty tricks, sure, but aren't quite as good as they seem at first glance. Pneuma may have insane damage output and freestyle blade combos plus easy mode chain attacks, but you can only call her once per battle, and you're locked into using her until she runs out or the battle ends. I pretty much only bring her out to put the finishing touches on an enemy, and even then that's rarely necessary with a well-built team.

@meleebrawler Pneuma is OP during the story and getting through endgame, but hardcore endgame optimization makes her bad compared to even Mythra or other Blades like Zenobia or Herald. I remember I hit a 150k-200k level 3 Blade Combo finisher with a Fusion Combo during my endgame optimization to S+ Blades while Mythra can easily hit 600k without a Fusion Combo and cap at 999k with one (at S+, granted). And with no crit-regen, you can't spam Arts like you can with a greataxe or Mythra. You still can with pouch items and use Sword Bash over Rolling Smash, but still.

That said, when you have her out, Rex is completely invincible to any debuff (like Topple or Blowdown) or death. That is huge.

Overall, Pneuma is like a Fire Emblem character like Frederick where they seem amazing at first (and still are), but quickly get outclassed by the other people.

@Snaplocket ULFS Max and Dynamic Spark Sword are powerful and spammable. Especially with their bonus effects. Zeke uses them often, even as a CPU, so it isn't really a specific build.
Also, Poppi QT is an evasion tank by default. Poppi Alpha can be an evasion tank too, with the right parts.

Twitter Blade reveals are back! It feels like it's been so long.

@Snaplocket Actually, having Rex use blades not registered to him causes their trust level to drop by one, hampering his damage potential unless you do even more grinding.