Board 8 > Playing Xenoblade for the first time

(+) Yeah! (+)

Just started it, incredibly excited to play this game I've heard so much about for so long. I could never get a Wii copy and was devastated when the 3DS port was only for New 3DS. Only an hour or so into the Switch version but I'm really digging the feel of it, character design/world/music already hooking me in. This won't be a properly in-depth playthrough topic like my FF ones, but I may use it to post updates when stuff happens or I have questions that I hope someone here can answer.

Anyway the primary reason I made this topic: Is Expert Mode recommended for a first playthrough or not? I don't want to make things too rough on myself but if the game's a cakewalk with sidequests (and I do plan to do sidequests) I don't want to remove any challenge either!

Also wow they sure do talk a lot during battle

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Expert Mode primarily makes it so that you dont get experience from sidequests right away and you can save it all up for when you suddenly feel like going up or down a level
I always leave it on, and I'd say its the better way to play even for a first time.
Just be aware of certain difficultyspike bosses
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Expert mode is strictly better imo because the sidequests will heavily overlevel you, fast

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It also evens the characters levels out, because some of them have a bad habit of leaving the party sometimes
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Expert Mode is really poorly named. All it does is disable automatic exp gain from doing stuff like discovering areas of the map, earning chievements, and completing sidequests, but you still "store" the exp and can dole it out to your characters anytime you want to. It's perfectly okay for beginners to use the feature, and it's honestly recommended or else you tend to end up horribly overleveled very quickly.

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Expert Mode also lets you remove exp from characters should you find yourself overleveled. The removed exp goes into their personal exp side pool and can be reapplied at any time with no penalty.
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Expert Mode was so much fun to dink around with. Like others have said, there's really no down side since you can strengthen/nerf your team with your side XP pool at will.

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+1 Expert commentary I'm not gonna repeat since enough seems said

but yeah there's just nothing to fear about it since the XP gets banked and you can freely adjust however

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Wow didn't expect such a consensus on yes, I will definitely turn that on then. Figured it might be intended for veterans, was it added in the Definitive Edition?

Thanks for all the info! I see already there's... a lot of sidequests!

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Expert Mode is a new feature that was added in DE.
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andylt posted...

Wow didn't expect such a consensus on yes, I will definitely turn that on then. Figured it might be intended for veterans, was it added in the Definitive Edition?

Thanks for all the info! I see already there's... a lot of sidequests!

I think Im the resident hater of xenoblade chronicles and this is why. I honestly think I would be in the consensus that it is a top game if you just removed 3/4th of them and replaced them with nothing.

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masterplum posted...

I think Im the resident hater of xenoblade chronicles and this is why. I honestly think I would be in the consensus that it is a top game if you just removed 3/4th of them and replaced them with nothing.

I'm with you. The side quests (and some of the balancing toward the end) are what keeps this from being a five star game instead of a four.

From what I understand, the Switch version makes sidequests a lot less tedious. There are tons of them, but I didn't really mind because they were fairly easy to complete.

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Im also not super high on xenoblade because the first 20 hours are amazingly boring, which is a shame cause it comes in hot.

Good game though.

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Leonhart4 posted...

From what I understand, the Switch version makes sidequests a lot less tedious. There are tons of them, but I didn't really mind because they were fairly easy to complete.

The most annoying part is having to search every town 4 times and talk to every single person to get all of the quests.

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I guess playing Trails games conditioned me to talk to lots of NPCs over and over!

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Leonhart4 posted...

From what I understand, the Switch version makes sidequests a lot less tedious. There are tons of them, but I didn't really mind because they were fairly easy to complete.

Oh, I played on switch. Them being fairly easy to complete is one of the problems. There are 400 of them, and so me zoning out taking 5 minutes to do one is over 30 hours of straight up work.

I just wanted them to be more interesting, or harder, or not required for late game unlocks. Literally any of those options.

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Being easy is part of the appeal for me!

I wouldn't want them all to be difficult or involved. There are enough interesting ones out there to compensate for all the mindless ones.

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The sidequests don't seem too bad at first but then you get to a certain area and they throw like 80 of them at you at once and I'm like "...oh no".

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you're really feeling it

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Grand Kirby posted...

The sidequests don't seem too bad at first but then you get to a certain area and they throw like 80 of them at you at once and I'm like "...oh no".

That's what hit me. It's really damn easy to just ignore side quests that you don't want to do, so complaining about them is pretty ridiculous. Especially since it has the most genius improvement to side quests of all time - auto completed quests.

But when you do actually feel like doing some side quests and you look at this massive list, you get discouraged. All it needs is some sort of filter to ignore the fetch quests and stick to the interesting ones.

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foolm0r0n posted...

That's what hit me. It's really damn easy to just ignore side quests that you don't want to do, so complaining about them is pretty ridiculous. Especially since it has the most genius improvement to side quests of all time - auto completed quests.

But when you do actually feel like doing some side quests and you look at this massive list, you get discouraged. All it needs is some sort of filter to ignore the fetch quests and stick to the interesting ones.

But these don't really exist in Xenoblade

There's a good amount of ones for NPC side stories that are pretty nice. There's also special enemy quests which are fun.

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the illegal nopon drug ring is one of the best sidequest lines

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That better not be a big spoiler! Speaking of...

*Progressive spoilers from here as I go through the game*

Holy **** Fiora. I did not see that coming.

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andylt posted...

That better not be a big spoiler! Speaking of...

*Progressive spoilers from here as I go through the game*

Holy **** Fiora. I did not see that coming.

"I'LL KILL YOU!" is when I knew this game was going to something special.

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best opener

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I will follow this topic.

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yeah put me in the sidequest complainer camp. I also don't like the menu/equipment setup interface.

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Yeah, I thought the story of xenoblade chronicles to be one of the highlights... at least for the first 90% of it, and by then at least it kept me around till the end. There are a few truly baffling Shulk choices but other than that I thought the characters were pretty engaging.

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I did all the sidequests in the 3DS version and then I did them all again in the Switch version. More games need to strive to have something like Xenoblade 1's affinity chart.

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mnkboy907 posted...

I did all the sidequests in the 3DS version and then I did them all again in the Switch version. More games need to strive to have something like Xenoblade 1's affinity chart.

Xenoblade needed to strive to do something better than Xenoblade's affinity chart, such as not make it difficult to max out everyone so you can see all the Heart to Hearts.

I'm all for affinity ratings in any and all RPGs, so I'm glad it exists here, but yeah, it could've been done better.

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I meant the NPC affinity chart.

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oh yeah, it's pretty cool watching that change over time as you do sidequests

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The "named NPC" side quests are generally more interesting and assist you in building the Affinity Chart (if you're into that sort of thing). However, these are also the ones that don't auto-complete, meaning you'll need to return to that NPC after satisfying their condition(s) in order to complete the quest.

The "unnamed NPC" side quests are more generic and consist of defeating X number of monsters or obtaining X items. These can be ignored, as they do almost nothing to flesh out the game world, but they are also the quests that DO auto-complete, so they won't really be wasting your time (many will naturally complete themselves for you as you explore and battle).

IMO, you can probably ignore everything apart from the quest shine mentioned and the ones that require you to battle unique monsters, and you'd still get a great experience. Even if you ignore every single side quest, this is still a content-rich 50+ hour RPG with tons of beautiful locations, a memorable and cohesive party, and a fantastic soundtrack.

(it's good)

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I like Shulk a lot already, he's the kind of character I'm drawn to. And I love the little naturalistic bits of dialogue that you don't usually get in these kinds of games, like when Fiora demands a reason why he was more concerned about the machine than her and he goes "...but I just told you why". Shulk+Reyn's friendship feels super natural too. The VA is good all round, especially for an English dub of a JRPG, but Shulk's is my fav. Also I don't normally care about armour in these games but the clothes all look rad, and that one serious battle music track that starts off 'dun dun dun dun dun dun dundundun' is really good!

I'm guessing Fiora will come back somehow (time travel shenanigans going by Dickson's flashback) but man that was a great sequence. Only disappointment is how Colony 9 is just... fine afterwards. Like a lady's flowerbed gets wrecked and the soldiers are gone but that's it. Sorozone says the first 20 hours are boring but I'm having a blast so far! Very pleased I didn't know of Fiora's death beforehand (Metal Face having bloodstained claws was too real, jeez). The only stuff I know is whatever Smash spoiled me on, which I think is just the 5 special powers of the Monado at this point (Smash may have been added for Smash so maybe it's 4). And I'm aware of Riki and Melia as names.

Closest thing to a complaint: it takes ages to travel to a place. It only bothered me crossing the lake, and there were Level 70 monsters there so I guess I'm not supposed to be there yet, but still. Sidequests are not bothering me yet, the fast travel having such a quick load and the insta quest complete for most of them helps.

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Yeah you should definitely be fast traveling as much as possible, but even then it takes forever to get around. There will be ways to make yourself move faster and as soon as those open up I recommend doing so.

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there's a good deal more things Smash could spoil so yeahhhh be careful how much you try to remember from it!

Smash 4 also had a really cool Bionis trophy that you could find the different locations on the god's body (trophies aren't in Ultimate...)

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It took me a little while to get into Xenoblade on the Wii. I felt overwhelmed by the sidequests at first but decided to just move on with the story and ignore most for awhile. Definitely glad I did that and then later on when I felt more engaged I went back and ended up completing a few at a time. Eventually by the time I finished the game, I did finish all of them.

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Yeah, Smash Ultimate definitely spoiled a Xenoblade plot point for me. I wouldn't consider it a huge one, but yeah.

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also note that Shulk's Monado powers in Smash aren't all real ones lol

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andylt posted...

Sorozone says the first 20 hours are boring but I'm having a blast so far!

Not sure why he said that since it has one of the strongest openings in all of JRPGs, and holds onto it for quite a while. I do think it fslters eventually but it goes impressively far without missing a beat.

(I've played the first 15 hours or so like 5 times, but only played the full game once)

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Because it is boring in comparison to the rest of the game.

From the point after the Mechonis attacks until like Satorl Marsh it is by far the most boring part of the game. It kinda slogs for a few hours after the stellar opening. This isn't a insult to the game, it takes a while to get your party going and to unlock arts.

Outside of the initial 3 hours, the opening isn't nearly as good as the rest of the game.


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That is definitely a surprising take, I assumed you were actually referring to the Frontier Village - Eryth Sea section which actually can be a bit of a slowdown. I always love Guar Plains through Satorl Marsh, really great opening map with one of the most iconic BGMs, then ending with one of the more gorgeous zones in the game! Also Xord rules.

Satorl's only fault is Zazadan having so many quests with a Fast Travel point not nearly close enough.

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I won't get into it too much, but your spoilers is when the game picked up for me. After that it was smooth sailing. Whether it be the gameplay/combat coming together, and the story picks up. While I like Guar plains as a section/area, the story section(s) kind of dragged for me.

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Zazadan can eat me.

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The game really picks up when Dunban joins the party

Dunban the best

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Ol dundun

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yeah I actually don't think the game gets really good until (character name spoiler) Melia joins

the initial beginning is good but post Mechon attack it dips for me

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LeonhartFour posted...

The game really picks up when Dunban joins the party

Dunban the best

Hey, that's Dunban over there!

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