Board 8 > Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Nintendo Direct Topic (11/7, 6am PT/9am ET/2pm GMT)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Grand Kirby posted...

Kind of weird how in vision flashback scenes it still has the same equipment that I stopped wearing after the vision first occured. Is it predicting I'll put them on again in the future?

Different timeline
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JP commercials (spoilers probably?) I didn't watch them but I listened and I still love that Engage the Enemy knock off.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRBrvXiMBQg
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Apparently there is a potential spoiler in the third one, but it's speculative.
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You can unlock abilities to start battles with arts fully charged.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DOSEol9VoAAZ-ZV.jpg
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Thank god. I was worried I wasn't going to be able to calmly walk up to things and backslash them to instant death anymore.
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I guess this game is ending up looking pretty good...

If there's a Switch bundle I'm getting it
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Voice acting seems pretty good too in-context with all the different characters

Except of course Pyra... why did they make her so bad
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I haven't really been following this game that close. What the heck are blades? Characters? Weapons?
Party members? Summons?
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DeepsPraw posted...

What the heck are blades? Characters? Weapons?
Party members? Summons?

Yes.

They're artificial life forms that you create from items called core crystals, which you collect throughout the game. The blades provide the playable characters with weapons, that they keep powered or whatever through an energy tether or something. Each blade has its own weapon type and element (what you get from any given core crystal is random), and you can equip three blades at once and swap between them during battle. Each main character has a "main" blade that they have to keep equipped at all times (Pyra for Rex, Dromarch for Nia, Poppi for Tora, etc...), so it's really that plus two other blades of your choice.

Blades are customizable, so you give them items to change their stats/attributes just like you can equip accessories on the main characters. Each weapon type has a different set of arts, so you want to have diversity. Blades also have affinity charts, where the more stuff you do with them, the better they'll be in combat. There's also voiced cutscenes/heart to hearts for each of them so that they feel like real characters.

Oh, and there's different categories of blades. There are common blades which just share the same four or so designs, but with different weapons/elements, and there are rare blades that have unique designs with a specific weapon/element that are harder to come by, but are more powerful. There's also beast blades and legendary blades but those haven't been shown off much.

I imagine the nature of what blades really are will be a big part of the storyline, since one of the factions in the game is said to oversee everything about them.
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User Smalt on the Xenoblade 2 board has been putting together a chart showing all the different arts shown for all the characters so far. It's cool to see the variety.

https://imgur.com/a/txu76

And that's not even all the weapon types yet. The Japanese direct showed that there are other beast blades that use twin rings, so it's not exclusive to Nia. Which means Zeke's great sword may not be exclusive either, and we just haven't seen any other blades with it yet (and same for any other character like Morag's twin sword whip things).
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