Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Bae Blades

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Bae Blades

Sam Faust: Feb 20, 2015

�As the giant beasts march toward death, the last hope is a scavenger named Rex�and Pyra, a living weapon known as a Blade. Can you find the fabled paradise she calls home? Command a group of Blades and lead them to countless strategic victories before the world ends. Each Titan hosts its own distinct cultures, wildlife, and diverse regions to explore. Search the vast open areas and labyrinthine corridors for treasure, secret paths, and creatures to battle and index. During these escapades you'll get to know a large cast of eclectic characters, including the weaponized life forms known as Blades. Gather these allies, bond with them to increase their power, and utilize their special arts to devastate enemies. But to save the world of Alrest, you must first demystify its cloudy past.� From Nintendo

Monolith Software�s latest entry in their flagship JRPG series Xenoblade Chronicles arrives exclusively on the Nintendo Switch globally at December 1st, 2017. Xenoblade 2 has the same general style as the previous two games with a massive overworld to explore and real-time MMO-esque combat, but now the combat has been modified to be more streamlined with buttons mapped to specific arts ala Persona 5 and a big focus on combo moves between party members. The story itself seems to take more queues from the original Xenoblade with a linear story and consistent cast of playable characters in contrast to the more open-world non-linear structure of Xenoblade X. Fans of the original that didn�t like the direction X took can feel more confidant that 2 might be something they�ll enjoy. Although the game has no direct ties to 1 or X, at least initially, and you don�t need to play either game to understand this one, I personally feel like there may end up being stronger connections to Xenoblade 1 near the end of the game. So, I would suggest either playing it yourself (it�s pretty good imo) or learning about it some other way. Just my opinion though.

Combat i.e. Drowning in Numbers and Anime

A common concern I�ve seen about the pre-release info for the game was how overwhelming the combat seemed with a bunch of different systems and numbers and what not. Undoubtedly, when you actually play the game, those systems will be introduced gradually in the beginning of the game, but I do want to give my understanding of what�s going on for those who want a general idea before buying.

First thing is that your party is made up of up to three �drivers� each with up to three of their own �blades.� Basically, the drivers are the actual characters you can play as while the blades give the drivers powers and abilities. The combat itself fits into a fairly simple framework that might not be immediately apparent. The combat revolves around using your basic attacks to charge up special attacks and in turn to charge up even more special attacks and so on.

To be more specific when you begin a battle, your character automatically performs basic attacks against the enemy. A change from previous games is that characters no longer attack while moving. This leads to precise positioning being more important since auto attacks are done in a combo with later hits doing more damage. Performing auto attacks charges your driver arts which are basically your standard RPG skill/spells. They each have their own special effects, but using them also charges your special art. Your special art is a strong elemental attack tied to a specific blade that can be charged to four different levels. You can use your special by itself or combo off your party members specials (you control when they use them too) to deal massive damage and limit an enemy�s abilities. Performing this elemental combo also places an elemental orb on them which gives them elemental resistance, but leads to the next step of the cycle. A mechanic called the �chain gauge� builds up over time in three blocks. You can use one block to revive party members or all three to start a chain attack. Chain attacks in Xenoblade 2 allow you to stop time and use your party�s specials to break the elemental orb with opposing elements and deal even more damage. The link between auto-attacks, arts, specials, and chain attacks is the framework for Xenoblade 2�s battle system.

Hopefully, that explains the general idea of how the battle system works. If you understand that, the other parts like specific art abilities and stats should fit into place. Also, you can switch between the three blades your character has equipped when their gauges have filled and doing so equips that blade changig the arts, special, and stats your characters has.

Here's a good post about the battle system that someone wrote now that the game has been released

Tyma posted:

A Super Quick Guide To Big Numbers

There are 14 types of weapon, and each type has it's own auto-attack animation and timing. Each Weapon type has a total of 4 Arts, and you can select which 3 of them are active on the �Enhance Arts� menu.

Landing an auto attack builds up a tiny bit of Meter on all 3 arts, and also the Special Art. When an Art's meter is full, you can cast it. Casting an art in the middle of an attack animation will award a larger amount a larger amount of meter than the auto-attack normally would (this is known in-game as �cancelling an auto-attack�). Casting it during the 'final' attack of the animation cycle will award even more meter again.

-

Driver Combos

Your A button is always Special Art, and inflicts damage based on the element of your weapon. You can activate it as soon as it fills to launch a Level 1 Special Art, or let it continue to build through to Level 3. Once it maxes out at Level 3, the Special meter stops charging, and can only reach Level 4 by standing close enough to your Blade that the umbilical chord connecting you begins to glow.

In Xenoblade 2, BIG NUMBERS are achieved by performing Special Arts in sequence, to create a Driver Combo. If you play as Rex, equip Pyra, and cast a Level 1 Special art. Rex will cast a Fire-based Special Art (called Heat), and begin the combo. You should now see a little table appear in the top right of the screen : The table shows the four possible Driver Combos that the party can now complete.

#1 : Fire � Fire � Fire (Seal Self Destruct)
#2 : Fire � Fire � Earth (Seal Affinity Down)
#3 : Fire � Water � Fire (Seal Self Destruct)
#4 : Fire � Water � Ice (Seal Shackle Blade)

Assuming you have Mia in your party, and few Blades to choose from, Combo #3 is the easiest one to aim for. To pull off this combo, we need to begin with a Fire-based Special Art (which we've done), and follow it up for a Level 2 Special Art (Water), and finish with a Level 3 Special Art (Fire). You'll also see a bar appear in the not right, with the name of the Special Art (in this case, Heat) appearing on it. This bar represents the amount of time you have to cast the next Special Art in the combo.

Assuming Mia has her default Blade equipped, her Avatar will pop up in the middle of the screen, along with the name of a Special Art. This means she wants to cast that Special Art in order to continue the combo, and is currently trying to build meter, in order to cast it. When she has enough meter, an �LZ� or �RZ� button prompt will appear next to her name. Pressing the relevant button will cast her Special Art, and continue the combo.

If all goes well, the Heat bar will be replaced by a new bar representing the spell Mia cast, and the table in the top-right will change, to show that Combo #1 and Combo #2 are off the table, and the party needs to cast a Fire or Ice Special Art, in order to pull off a Driver Combo. In theory, Rex should be able to build up a Level 3 or Level 4 meter in time, and can use that to cast 'Steam Explosion', and make BIG NUMBERS appear.

Your party members won't blow their Special Arts until you tell them to, but if at any point you cast a Special Art which is too low-level to advance the combo, then it just won't advance, and you'll have to start again from scratch.

Whenever a party member's avatar pops up in the relevant spot on-screen, it means they have the correct Blade equipped to perform the next stage of a possible Driver Combo, and the ZL/ZR prompt means they have enough bar to execute the Special Art right now. If the avatar isn't showing, then it means the weapon they currently have equipped cannot participate in the current combo. When you have no combo currently on-going, they should both pop up on-screen, and you can actually use the ZL/ZR buttons to command them to cast Level 1 Special Arts, in order to begin completely different Driver Combos. As the game gets going, the possibilities become ridiculous, and the bonus effects associated with each Driver combo (such as sealing arts) becomes a really big deal.

Collecting and Customizing i.e. Managing your own hype squad

As with most any RPG, battle is only half the� battle. The other half being customizing and upgrading your characters. As said before, each driver gets three blades, and those blades determines what arts and stats the driver has when equipped. Each blade (and driver) also has their own skill tree (skill being passive abilities in this game) that is unlocked as you perform certain objectives (like kill certain enemies, perform certain arts, etc.) to power them up.

Being the central way of customizing your characters both in battle and cosmetically (there�s no visible equipment changes like in previous games), there is a significant amount of blades to mix and match to create your own perfect anime hype squad. The blade designs have actually come from a variety of different artists including people who have worked on Final Fantasy and Tales of games. This leads to a rather� robust and colorful selection of potential minions.

]
https://i.imgur.com/92HilQM.gifv

Sam Faust fucked around with this message at 09:56 on Dec 3, 2017

# ¿ Nov 22, 2017 01:36

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 20, 2024 04:34

Sam Faust: Feb 20, 2015

Reserved for other stuff. Maybe? I don't know.

# ¿ Nov 22, 2017 01:37

Sam Faust: Feb 20, 2015

CuddlyZombie posted:

I'm very excited for this, the blades look really cool (mostly)

To get in the spirit of things, should I play XB1 3D, or XBX? I own both but never got far in either

X has some mixed reception but I'm a big fan of it. If you don't mind reading through a big in game manual to figure out combat, you might like it. The 3D version of XB doesn't look too hot, but if that doesn't bother you go for it.

# ¿ Nov 22, 2017 02:10

Sam Faust: Feb 20, 2015

LostRook posted:

So are the additional collectaible blades are actually different characters or just collectibles with attached JPEGs? The vaguely Amano drawing in the first image has me curious as to how they'll codify it.

I don't think they have any story significance, but they all do have in game models when you summon them. The drawings are just concept or menu art for what you get in game. Think more along the lines of pokemon or persona.

Wonder Turbine posted:

Bae Blades

drat, this one's really good.

# ¿ Nov 22, 2017 02:47

Sam Faust: Feb 20, 2015

CuddlyZombie posted:

By big manual, do you mean the manual all wii u games come with or a set of in game tutorials?

The Wii U manual which you can actually access directly from the in game menu and is really big. The game will put you through some basic tutorials, but for a lot of the specific details you gotta read it yourself.

# ¿ Nov 22, 2017 03:17

Sam Faust: Feb 20, 2015

Maybe I'm just hearing things, but I noticed something interesting when I was listening to the boss battle music. (Mild Xenoblade 1 spoilers) The boss battle theme seems to have bits from XB1 themes. Compare these two parts in particular for a clear example: https://youtu.be/pa2PH7zQVmU?t=126 and https://youtu.be/v6xQyJlt7EE?t=40

# ¿ Nov 22, 2017 03:38

Sam Faust: Feb 20, 2015

Wendell posted:

Good job on your first thread, Sam Faust! I am proud of you.

Thank you. :3:

# ¿ Nov 23, 2017 00:29

Sam Faust: Feb 20, 2015

Calaveron posted:

When's the game coming out because I don't see that information in the OP and that is a massive mistake

It is in the op, but I'll bold it so it's easier to see at a glance.

# ¿ Nov 23, 2017 00:47

Sam Faust: Feb 20, 2015

Waltzing Along posted:

Reviews should be out soon, no?

Looks like the embargo lifts Thursday.

# ¿ Nov 29, 2017 06:07

Sam Faust: Feb 20, 2015

This game may be far more powerful than I could have possibly imagined.

# ¿ Nov 30, 2017 08:58

Sam Faust: Feb 20, 2015

Mr. Trampoline posted:

Third Blade slot also gets unlocked through the story.

Can somebody give an idea when without spoiling? Like what level you were at?

# ¿ Dec 2, 2017 08:37

Sam Faust: Feb 20, 2015

Saxophone posted:

Found my first rare crystal after a boss fight.

Kosmos.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2017 06:39

Sam Faust: Feb 20, 2015

Moochewmoo posted:

I lied and read a bit of thread and gently caress me if this doesnt belong in the OP.

I added it just now. I didn't see it before cause I was trying to avoid day 1 spoilers with the thread.

# ¿ Dec 3, 2017 09:57

Sam Faust: Feb 20, 2015

Neddy Seagoon posted:

The combat flows just fine, especially if you've played XBC. The maps are very large and expansive, and the cool things like Heart-to-Hearts don't require affection/trust levels at all (at least as far as I can tell). Just go activate them whenever you spot one.

Heart-to-Hearts don't require affection in this game, but a lot of them do seem to require field skills to get to. It does feel a lot easier to grind specific field skills than some of the affinity requirements in xbc1 though.

# ¿ Dec 4, 2017 13:43

Sam Faust: Feb 20, 2015

8-Bit Scholar posted:

This thread should probably get clued in to these great little essays that the developers have been putting out. This one is really interesting, as it explains why they made Rex the main character and how his design developed. They've done a few of these that show a lot of insight into the game development process.

https://www.nintendo.com/whatsnew/detail/xenoblade-chronicles-2-message-from-director-takahashi

I'm not sure if it's been mentioned in the thread before, but this dev essay came with an imo interesting game tip.

quote:

Even the valuable Legendary Core Crystals will be dropped in abundance if you Launch a unique monster of level 100 or greater and then Smash them down.

Legendary cores are always supposed to drops rares IIRC?

# ¿ Dec 7, 2017 10:08

Sam Faust: Feb 20, 2015

Bass Bottles posted:

Does anyone else have a completely blank quest screen? Accepting new quests, completing old quests, and rebooting the game hasn�t fixed it. Is my game irrevocably glitched or am I just an idiot not using the UI correctly?

Edit: I�m not an idiot, the UI is just garbage.

If this happens to you make sure �view all� is set under the �categories� tab because I guess �view none� is an invisible setting that can happen??

Maybe you had it set to view blade quests or main story quests when you didn't have any?

# ¿ Dec 14, 2017 21:03

Sam Faust: Feb 20, 2015

Amppelix posted:

Anyone know how exactly counterattacks work? And I mean those counterattacks that are listed on some blades' affinity trees as "counter attacks with X% damage". One of Poppi's flavor texts suggests it has to do with evading attacks which would make sense as QT is all about evasion.

IIRC it means the enemy will take damage when they miss an attack on that character. You should see some purple damage numbers pop up when that happens.

# ¿ Jan 6, 2018 21:15

Sam Faust: Feb 20, 2015

Ometeotl posted:

This is good

This one took me a second, but :lol:

# ¿ Apr 27, 2018 15:49

Sam Faust: Feb 20, 2015

Important information from the Treehouse stream:

# ¿ Jun 15, 2018 06:42

Sam Faust: Feb 20, 2015

punk rebel ecks posted:

So just started playing this game and it's fantastic so far.

Really hope reviewers were wrong about this being worse than Xenoblade Chronicles 1.

I enjoyed 2 more than 1.

# ¿ Jul 20, 2018 06:34

Sam Faust: Feb 20, 2015

This battle theme is so smooth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_SlG-xDBLo

# ¿ Sep 7, 2018 08:29

Sam Faust: Feb 20, 2015

100+ hours and 100+ legendary cores later I finally got everybody's favorite terminator waifu. Also, I finished Torna, and that was a lot of fun. Monolith Soft really benefits from having a narrow focus to reign in their ambition. Just started ng+ too, and I love the idea of selling exp for bonus goodies. I wish more RPGs had that or something similiar as a core feature (another good example is TWEWY).

https://twitter.com/SamFaustus/status/1049411924104888320

# ¿ Oct 8, 2018 22:52

Sam Faust: Feb 20, 2015

Neddy Seagoon posted:

The writers know this. That's why everyone's dunking on her being snobbish every chance they can .

I'm down to one Gatcha Blade left in XC2 after burning the Expansion Pass crystals, and it's KOS-MOS .

I feel no shame in admitting I exploited cloud saves so that I "only" grinded for 99 and not like 300 ~ 400 cores.

# ¿ Oct 9, 2018 02:28

Sam Faust: Feb 20, 2015

Neddy Seagoon posted:

Wow, Torna's story really slams the brakes hard when it expects you to get Community up to Level 4 to progress. How close to the end am I, out of curiosity?

You're pretty much near the end.

# ¿ Oct 13, 2018 04:20

Sam Faust: Feb 20, 2015

Terper posted:

I was thinking of writing one up this weekend when I'm not swamped with work and or exhausted but if anyone chooses to surpass me and post the thread we've all been searching for before that, then I...!

I was planning on making a new thread for the definitive edition when it got close to release. I'm also not exactly starved for time at the moment, so I could get it done by tomorrow or the day after.

Blackbelt Bobman posted:

Paging Louisgod to this thread.

Hmm, you might be waiting a bit on that call.

# ¿ May 14, 2020 19:34

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ Apr 20, 2024 04:34

Sam Faust: Feb 20, 2015

Terper posted:

well I hope you haven't spent the last couple hours writing up the perfect thread because

https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3923642

My power just straight up went out the other day, so I didn't get much done. So this is probably for the best lol.

# ¿ May 16, 2020 19:02

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Bae Blades