Topic: Xenoblade Chronicles 3

you actually like Valdi? Why?

@Mioaionios Honestly, Agnus doesn’t represent much of the actual XC2 in my experience, but that story did have bunches of moments to alleviate the tension, so it does kind of fit in a way. Where Xenoblade 1 was more serious-ish. Besides that and races and the like, the two sides don’t really ‘represent’ many sides of the games they come from to me, but I think that helps them feel unique while still connected to the other games in some minor way that leaves room for creativity.

I’ll get to all the sidequests at some point, but going for the ending first was definitely a mistake with how that turned out. xD Still, it’s on the to-do list so I’ll start at some point…

I also close the game periodically, but have dealt with three or so crashes across my 85~ish hours with the game so far. Annoying, since they've all forced me to re-do some stuff, but not common enough to be a true nuisance.

I disliked Valdi from the initial trailer info when I saw him. But after playing the game, I love his character as a mechanic who truly has a passion for fixing and building things.

In fact, there really hasn't been a character I actively disliked, come to think of it. Maybe Cammeravi? He's not bad, but he never struck much of a chord with me. Though, there are parts in the story later on that gave me a chuckle. He's brought some levity to the game right when it needed it. So even then, I don't dislike him, but I do feel less attached to him than most others.

I also never dove into Soulhacker class. Just felt like too much of a time sink. And with all the Unique Monsters I'd already fought that weren't credited, it was like eh. I'm good. I'll do the sidequests and stuff but I'm not actively pursuing class mastery or anything.

Im not impressed with the Soulhacker class. Sure its Xenoblade's version of a blue magic user since Final Fantasy V to Final Fantasy IX, but in the Xenoblade universe, the soulhacker mechanic sounded neat on paper but when you get the class job and really experierience it late in the game though, it's like why even bother with it anyway?

It strikes me as interesting to see truly how much this game relies on Xenoblade 1 over Xenoblade 2. Like, elements from both games do exist, but the game seems to focus upon the Keves side of things from the very moment it starts, up until it ends, with little glimpses at Agnus through it's colonies and a few cutscenes of it's own. There's a ton of remixes from Xenoblade 1 in terms of music, but very little in terms of remixes for 2's music. I think like one or two Xenoblade 2 songs get a remix, while a good handful of things from Xenoblade 1 get a remix.

Even the main villain of the game reminds me of the final boss of Xenoblade 1 in a sense. Both died almost the same exact way, and both are god-like beings that try to prolong their existence through a cycle of destruction and rebirth.

For the first time I had to turn the difficulty down from normal to easy. I was 7-8 levels above the boss fights in chapter 4, and I was getting annihilated. I did give it a fair shake on normal about 6 or 7 times before switching the difficulty. I'm kinda kicking myself for doing it now, but It saved me some hour or two of grinding I'd imagine.

@NintendoByNature are you using balanced teams? (Using fighters, tanks and healers). And doing both a mix of combos, Ouroboros and chain attacks? I found the combat on this game the easier from the three games.

@Takoda
Aside from the races, which are very obvious which game they stem from, there are a couple of other design choices that reference the previous games. The Kevesi Levnises for instance look a lot like Mechon, while some of the Agnian designs, mainly their castle, seem to be mostly inspired by the Kingdom of Torna and its capital Auresco.

@VoidofLight
I think you're correct that the story is more Kevesi-focused but I don't think the difference is all that big. In fact, there's an equal amount of Kevesi and Agnian colonies with NPCs and quests. You might be right about the music, haven't looked into that.

@JaxonH
There's not a single Hero I dislike either, though Ashera took a long time to grow on me. Once I did her Ascension quest, everything fell into place and I understood her motivations.
And yeah... I can't find the motivation to build out the Soulhacker class either. I don't consider that to be part of a 100% completion either. You have to draw the line somewhere. Levelling every class on every character to max is another thing I don't bother with. I pick the ones that benefit each character the most and stick to that. For me 100% completion comes down to completing all quests and exploring everything.

@NintendoByNature
There were some tough boss fights in this game so far, even being overleveled by 5 or so. But at 8-10 it shouldn't have been that hard, I don't think.

As Balta mentioned, did you have a balanced team? Two healers and two defenders, with Valdi (War Medic) as your hero? I've found Defender heros are also effective, but nothing beats War Medic class for healing imo. Speaking of which, did your healers have the War Medic class and mastered the healing arts from it, with appropriate healing arts assigned, with gems and accessories boosting healing?

Also wanna rock out your Defenders with high block rates or high evasion rates (depending on their innate stat strengths), and high aggro skills to keep the enemy focused on them.

I've found your mix of classes and choice of hero, your chosen arts and equipped gems/accessories, can have a major impact on survivability.

Also taking full advantage of Break>Topple>Launch>Smash or Break>Topple>Daze>Burst to keep the enemy disarmed as much as possible. And always taking advantage of AoE buff rings on the ground. Should always have a Regenerate ring or a Fast Art Recharge ring on the ground, preferably both, and keep your character inside it as much as possible when fighting.

Lastly, making sure to equip accessories that build Interlink faster (I use one that builds Interlink 55% faster but in Ch. 4 the best I had was 35% faster- still helped though), and that start battle off with Master Arts already charged (this means getting 3 Fusion Arts out the gate, which combined with faster Interlink accessory means getting to Ourobouros form way faster). Speaking of which, always build to Level 3 Interlink before going into Ourobouros to ensure you get your Break All and Smash All effects.

Oh, and making effective use of Chain Attacks to strategically heal when your back is against the wall, and to maximize damage output which can end fights surprisingly quick if you're good with chain attacks.

@Mioaionios
Exactly. Gotta draw the line somewhere. I get some people are into completionist activities and, I guess sometimes I am? I intend to do every quest in Monster Hunter Rise Sunbreak, for example. But for a game like this it's so much. The thing that drives me isn't completion for completions sake, but because the content is so good. I'm perfectly OK leaving some quests undone, some classes left unmastered. As you said, gotta draw the line somewhere.

Anyone else a fan of fan art for your favourite games?
This one's so cute I could die.

@Mioaionios hehe that is cool but...

as all kevesi are dogs I would prefer all agnian to be cats (so it would be one more reason for my preference to the XC2 counterpart )

@Balta666 @JaxonH ya know what, I think that was it. I didn't have any defenders at the time( DOH!). I did however have a couple war medics maxed out, a sword fighter, couple ogres, and a tactician. And noted about making some rearrangements on the arts and gems. I can't recall what I had in there. About 30 minutes before that battle I 'auto filled' the character sheets for arts/gems etc. That was probably my downfall and I'll do some adjusting tonight.

Side note though: how come certain characters can't play as any class? What I'm finding a problem with is, that I have some characters fully maxed out in every class available to them, but can't pick anything new. Maybe I missed something along the way?

Whoever did this captured their personalities so well. Goes to show how well written they are this time round.

@NintendoByNature you need to have at least one character with it or the hero in the roster in order to fill up the ones still locked. Also you need to gain CP which the better way is to fight special enemies at at least 5 levels close to you and with overkill (chain attack bonus after enemy dies)

@Mioaionios Cat Mio is just adorable, and Dog Noah looks more enamored than he ever did in the actual game. (Though of course, that was a 3D Model so it ain't all that easy.) Eunie being a fox also somehow makes perfect sense, and Sena looks like Umbreon. They all just look great, haha. Thanks for sharing.

@NintendoByNature
Once you gain a Hero, you unlock their class for one specific character. For the other 5, they gradually progress toward unlocking that class with CP points. Once the max has been reached, the class becomes unlocked for that particular character. If you check your class menu you'll see certain classes locked, but the character icon is partially filled. That's how far you've progressed toward unlocking that class.

And ya, defenders are super important as they tank all the damage. They're more important than healers, even. I'd rather have no healers than no defenders. Best is to ensure you always have at least 2 defenders and 2 healers. As for the 7th Hero slot, you can add a 3rd attacker, which will make battles a bit faster, but if you're up against a tough boss I'd quickly change over to a 3rd Defender or 3rd Healer.

@Balta666 @JaxonH all great stuff thanks you two! I guess I didn't think about all that since I was steam rolling on normal the entire game. But, I'll be more conscious from now on.

I'm really loving Erythia Sea in spite of how annoying it can be to control the boat at times. It's big, but travelling from island to island breaks up the exploration into nice digestible chunks.

I'm now on the island with all the crystal formations, the first of the two islands you have to visit to get Intel on the prison. Everyone is at level 61, and I have enough bonus EXP squirrelled away to jump 10 levels if need be (still planning on hoarding it for now).