I haven’t seen this, but I’m certain the answer has to be blue milk.
So, the reason I like Rex is he’s a bit of a rube. He’s simple and maybe not all that bright in science/book learning ways but clearly skilled in his trade and has a massive heart of gold. Gramps sometimes even talks down to him and he bites back because maybe he’s not the sharpest tool in the shed, but he’s not real concerned about that nor will he just let people push him around because of it. For me, this seems like something new in a JRPG protagonist. I kinda like that he is unaffected by the cheesecake too and that he is almost embarrassed by it when he first meets Pyra and needs to touch her chest.
I guess I’m probably reading into the character too much? I think one of the things that makes these games so great is the strong characterization of all these unique individuals. They’re distinct personalities and their voice actors do a really good job of conveying the differences between them and showing emotions that most games don’t really accomplish this well.
And well, Xenoblade as a series has always had this driving optimism and I kinda love that about it.
Agreed. Even angsty Xenosaga somehow felt optimistic to me as the universe was literally disintegrating and billions and billions of people were getting killed and turning into monsters. It was just upbeat somehow despite all this.
I’ve come to really dig the design of the various blades, and it’s partly for touches like these. I get the sense that the sandbags around Roc’s neck are because he’s otherwise so light that he can’t help going airborne. He needs them or he’ll fly away!
Either that or some sort of Japanese cultural thing I don’t understand. And, yes, I also thought they were breasts at first. Which wouldn’t have been out of place given how buxom the chick blades tend to be…
-Tom
I noted Zenobia also has a bag thing in her design, and she’s also a Wind attack blade. But it looks like it’s filled with air, rather than weighing her down.
I also thought that roc had giant boob bags.
Because that seemed to be the driving factor in character design.
Man, I’m having internal debates on if I should continue with the game or not. I’m 22 hours in and I’m liking the core of the game (I like combat even though it’s a lot to keep track of and I’m enjoying the story so far) but there is just so much BS around the edges that makes things frustrating.
I’ve lost all desire to open up cores. Half the time I guess wrong and I get a useless core for that person’s role. It wouldn’t be too bad if I could change people’s roles around but I can’t really because Rex is forced to use Pyra and Nia is forced to use Dromarch, so coordinating things so that we always have one attacker and one healer at all times is not easy with the A/I. I don’t even care about the common cores but I have not gotten one rare core to match roles properly.
The controls are infuriating in how they re-used key buttons. Want to res Tora so you aren’t down a tank? Oh guess what you were one pixel off when pressing A so you did your special instead, so not only are you guys taking extra damage cause the tank is still down you did crap special damage because you weren’t expecting QTEs. Or hey my wife is calling me during battle and I reflexivly press + to pause and guess what you can’t and just wasted a chain combo on an enemy 7 levels below.
The maps are terrible and trying to find the right way up Uraya’s stomach was frustrating (I kept going up to the crown, which apparently is the wrong way with level 35s-40s floating around waiting to one shot you). I finally found that the path divided right after the gate but it wasn’t the easiest to notice and a map would have really helped.
The placement of monsters is ridiculously frustrating. I spent 30+ minutes trying to figure out how to get to the secret area for Umon’s parts quest. I finally gave up and looked it up, turns out I was doing it right but you have to time going up the tree root perfectly to not get one shot by the asshole level 74 flying enemies in the area. Stupid me assumed that the 74s just meant I was taking the hard way around, but I was trying the same way the guides were telling me to go (only 2 ways to get up that hill).
Tiger Tiger just seems like it was put in the game to completely waste your time. I don’t find it enjoyable and yet it seems like it’s required to keep Poppi advancing.
Granted, I may be a bit more frustrated than usual since I spent 20 minutes fighting voif and other enemies that kept calling for reinforcements, only to pick up the last piece of loot and have the game crash on me…
Sounds like me early on, I even had a similar whinge in this thread somewhere too… :)
But you come to realize it really doesn’t matter too much until later, so don’t sweat it. Your team will come together over time. The story will dole some out to you, as well as some unique core crystals (I’d cheat & check the role on those before opening them so you can decide who they go to). Extra functionality will be unlocked as you go.
Just try open a good amount of blades across both your drivers (for a range of field skill options), prioritise getting one good rare healer on Nia. If Rex opens one, use an Overdrive to move it to Nia. Boreas is ideal, he has great group healing skills.
Fill the gaps with common blades, based on their field skill utility (increase collection point yield to facilitate aux core power, get past the skill ‘progression gates’ on secret areas and chests). You’ll unlock a way to increase unequipped blade affinity skills later.
Can’t say that’s ever happened to me! But the way they implemented it seems logical enough.
You should be reflexively pressing Home, the universal Switch pause button! :)
Yeah it’s not great but I still found myself playing it a bit, at least until I got the ‘perfects’ on the first few stages. It does kind of make you want to use the other Tank character you get instead…
If you do keep playing, you’re in for a nasty shock too… Poppi has more than one form and you need to power them up seperately.
Hah, opening him up on Rex last night was one of the things that made me really annoyed. I don’t know what Overdrive is but I’m assuming I just haven’t unlocked it, so it’s good to know it’s at least possible to move blades around at some point (at 20+ hours in I still don’t have my 3rd blade spot heh).
I have no idea why I have never thought about that. Good call!
Later in the game you will find out that opening cores with Rex is a terrible idea.
Yup, I have the overdrive system. It doesn’t make sense with the random nature you get blades in or that the story can change things a lot.
As an outsider, conversations about this game sound like total nonsense. Like this is how they sound to me:
You need to make sure you Overdrive your Popi, because if you don’t then it’ll really lead to some inefficient cycle-fusions down the line. Oh, and be SURE that when you recalibrate Rex you DO NOT detach his bearings, because that makes all of his Line Breaks start from the beginning! I don’t know why they had the Line Breaks depend on your FOCUS stat and eat up XP, but that’s the way it is. I just hope the next guy I psycho evolve is the kind that foregoes XP in favor of naturadvance (natural advance), but there is no guarantee of that unless you get insanely lucky on your S-Draws.
I should build a bot that I can point to a topic URL and it’ll markov chain up a comment, based on the posts in that topic. With luck, they’d all look like your post.
The Mark_L chain.
You can still work on maxing his affinity chart, as another benefit is he has one of the easiest to unlock. When a blade gets moved over, they keep their skills.
It’s a rare item you get from certain treasure chests, an ‘Overdrive Protocol’ that lets you assign blade to another driver. You only get a few throughout the game. You may have one already, you can see it in the Item List. Or go to ‘Manage Blades’ and select a blade, and if an ‘Overdrive’ option pops up then you have one. Don’t waste it like I did, when I thought it was just a standard option… :P
Except that’s 3/4 through the game, and you still want some blades on him to give you more options for increasing collection amounts and field skill checks! And don’t forget, you can also release blades and then try get them again on someone else.
Wait what?
Yeah you can get rid of non-story common/rare blades (I’m firing the more useless low-level commons regularly straight after opening a bunch).
Under the ‘Manage Blades’ section, the X button does ‘Release’. You get some booster items in return. You can then try get them again on someone else!
But note that you may not be lucky… and also it would reduce your chance of getting a new blade you’ve not seen before, if the old one is back in the pool.
Is there even a reason to keep any of the non-rare blades after you’ve built up a halfway-decent stable of rares? They don’t even show up on a collectibles list or anything, and their stats/bonuses just seem really lackluster.
Not sure how far you are, but yeah some time on the second real map (Uraya) you unlock a use for them.
While there’s no point using them in battle, if you engage them they also can contribute to field skill checks for finding chests and getting more stuff from collection points (for powering aux cores). The shower of stuff you get for three successful field skill checks on a collection point is pretty satisfying. :)
Also maxing out their affinities provides rewards. I favour keeping the stronger ones (more stars) that have an element and at least one other field skill. Once you unlock the thing for them, they can build WP (in the weapon they use) and Trust for their driver without needing to be engaged.
3rd game crash. I’m well in to the game, so this isn’t often, but obviously you don’t expect a console game to crash.
Just a reminder to save often, the game does not auto save except when it wants to prevent you from save scumming blade opens.