Topic: Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition

Mechonis was the best part of the game and I reject all normal opinions about this!

No amount of cool, effective cutscenes from one of the best stories Nintendo's ever been involved with ever made the characters feel as cool to me as their UNENDING. WAR. TO. DESTROY. MECHON. MACHINES. TO. GET. TO. THE. TOP. And granted, part of this is how little I focused on sidequests during this time, so I stuck pretty closely to just going forward for hours and hours, but forcing the 2nd trip through something of this size to be focused on just getting to the top with little interruption made the journey feel epic in a way few games have ever properly achieved for me. It's just...a somewhat different type of epic than the first half of the game. Though also keep in mind, my original playthrough of Xenoblade happened within the span of about 5 months or so. But I know I went through the Mechonis in just a few days at most (the main journey up it anyway), in longer play sessions. So I had a very specific circumstance to appreciate it. But it is, dead serious, one of my favorite gaming memories.

While very different in a lot of ways, I got a similar experience out of chapter 7 of Celeste. A similar sense of being almost single mindedly focused on climbing the impossible and dealing with constant obstacles on your way.

I think you just declared yourself abnormal?

looks at signature

Well, I mean...in a sense. :V

But no, I'm usually on the side of focusing on the quality of the narrative in JRPGs over gameplay myself, so even I'm surprised at how much the part of this JRPG that isn't story focused is my favorite.

Rounded out most of the Eryth Sea side quests last night. Hoping for some story progression this evening, though whether I play is really starting to hinge on how I feel in a little while. Not feeling the best right now.

@Heavyarms55 I might know which area you're talking about as I've ran across the name on YT OST playlists. Past that, I know little about the area.

Past Sword Valley...

Mind. Blown.

edit
Btw can I just say the game suddenly got ballz to the wall hard all of a sudden. I barely got past that part in Casual Mode (in fact, I died to a tyrant mechonis boss with like 5 others on this platform with green ether below, dear goodness. I would have had to grind out several more levels to stand a chance there. Or maybe I’m giving casual mode too much credit and the fight just would’ve taken longer, Idk. But I do know I had to put it on casual and even then I still died on my first try using it. But I pulled through.

Thank goodness for casual mode. For real. It just takes out the frustration of the difficulty spikes and reduces some of the need for grinding. A bit anyways. Don’t wanna rely on it too much or I’ll slink behind to the point it’s just as hard in Casual from not keep level up to scratch. But it’s a nice crutch when you hit a snag. It’s saved me twice now.

@Tyranexx You will know it when you see it, trust me. You should have seen a preview already in a cut scene early on.

@JaxonH what level are you at? I just did that section. Had a tiny bit of trouble with one of the unique mechs.. also did you buy the anti-mechon weapons and equip them?

@JaxonH I generally found that dying too much meant I hadn't done enough side quests so I'd talk to people in Colony 9, Colony 6, Frontier Village, Alcamoth, etc. and find a massive bunch of new side quests (I found out generally if you talk to named characters and they give you an affinity chart boost then talk to characters they mention, quests will generally appear) which after completing made the enemies I was dying before to before a fairer fight. The downside is that this way you find yourself not making any story progress for several hours at points.

@NintendoByNature
I'm level 53 for everyone, on a beach now. And I didnt notice any anti mech weapons. Think all the ones they were selling weren't as good as the ones I had.

@Grumblevolcano
Ya Idk, seemed I was right on point for my level until deep inside that fortress. Probably just need to gain 2 levels.

@JaxonH that's what I'm at too. I forgot who was selling those anti-mech weapons, but you're right they aren't as good. The 1 upside to them is that you're partners can slash away at mechons without you having to give them the ability to with the monado. It makes those fights alot easier.

@JaxonH The anti-mechon weapons were at the shop near the entrance to Sword Valley (there'll be more powerful ones throughout the next few areas), Their sole purpose is so you don't have to use Monado Enchant or topple for party members to damage mechon. Dunban's default weapon is an anti-mechon weapon. If you don't already have anti-mechon weapons equipped, do so as most of the rest of the game is a lot more difficult without them.

@Grumblevolcano @NintendoByNature
Welp, that would probably be why. Didnt realize anti mechon weapons existed. I'll check my inventory for any new ones I've picked up, otherwise I can always fast travel back and buy a new weapon for Reyn and Sharla.

@JaxonH yea i saw them and almost didn t buy them myself since they're underpowered to what i had. But I figured maybe it'll be useful against mechon and sure enough..

I put in a good 2+ hours yesterday evening and finished off Chapter 9. Whew....A lot of good plot progression there. I admittedly had an inkling about one bombshell, but how it was delivered...definitely out of left field. I have some answers now, but there are definitely as many new questions. The politics of the High Entia are interesting for sure, plus I don't know what to think of a few NPCs now. I did a bit more exploring in Eryth Sea before turning off the game for the night as an area (complete with a quest chain) that I thought was part of Prison Island didn't turn out to be so. I seem to have missed a warp area when exploring before. Hoping to head in the direction of the next plot destination unless I get sidetracked again.

Edit: Forgot to mention my entire group is at level 46 right now. Just under 40 hours in.

@Heavyarms55 Guessing said area is Valak Mountain? Seems like that's my next destination.

Man, nailed a mechon side quest in sword valley. I nearly finished off every mech in the area aside from respawning ones. And the mech with side quest was well worth it but tough as nails. I just finished leveling up to 54, and that side quest was 22k exp so I was almost near 55!

And I did a ton of exploring. So I've seen just about everything there is to see in the area and I'm about to jump back into the main quest. 40 hours on the nose and level 55

There are at least a couple of plot twists that I probably would've figured out if I didn't take so long to play the game, which makes me glad I took my time tbh. That one in particular I called so much earlier that I had forgotten that I thought it could happen until it did. Which is kind of awesome tbh.

@Tyranexx That is indeed the area I was talking about. It looks way better in this game too. In the original it was a lot of fun to explore for it's structure, but the snow was more of a grey-white like ash and everything was ugly and washed out. Now it actually looks like I imagine was intended.

Said area has a LOT of little secrets, winding paths, and hidden areas you can find. You'll definitely want to look everywhere!

So...I'm currently at 41 hours on the dot, according to my save file.

@Heavyarms55 I only played about an hour last night but did make it to that area after fixing a broken bridge in Makna Forest; that's been driving me crazy lol. I spent the rest of the session in the new area exploring and beating up monsters. I'm glad I did; a secret area I came across netted me a lot of EXP. My whole crew is comfortably sitting at level 48 now.

Agreed that the area is beautiful; I like snowy landscapes when done right, plus the day to night contrast here reminds me of how Satorl Marsh's environs change. But yeah, there are a TON of nooks and crannies. I'm trying to figure out how to get to a certain area on the upper level before getting down to the lower level.

@Tyranexx Oh yeah that bridge. XD When I first played the game I spent like 5 hours running around trying to figure out what to do because I could see a quest icon on the other side.

Did you do the side quest for the tomb right before the mountain? If now, you really should, it's very cool! it's a small quest chain that starts with a conversation in the archaeology area in Frontier village.

Just finished galahad fortress..its heating up!