Board 8 > Playing Xenoblade for the first time

(+) Yeah! (+)

lihlih posted...

Ok, on more question"
Xenoblade Chronicles or Persona 5 Royale? I haven't played Persona since 3 FES, and I'd be brand new to Xenoblade.

Xenoblade is my favorite RPG and I didn't like Persona 5 - P3 was much better

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I love both games. Play both eventually. I do think Xenoblade 1 is better than P5 in pretty much every way except battle system. But P5 is way better than Xenoblade 2

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P5R is better

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colliding posted...

Vague spoiler about the time limit: it is not any time soon and you shouldn't feel like you need to do all of the Alcamoth side quests now

Yeah i dislike exploring Alcamoth while my party is all divided.
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Xenoblade is my favourite video game ever but I have yet to play Persona 5 so

(or finish P4G yet, so only P3 so far)

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Both games are amazing for different reasons!

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I think Persona 5 will probably be easier to enjoy and I personally feel is the better game.

That said, honestly both games scratch different itches. I know a lot of people who don't like super-linear RPGs, turn-based battling or anime tropes and would like P5 a lot less than Xenoblade.

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Both good, but they depend on what you value in an RPG. Xenoblade is better for world-building. Persona 5 just oozes style and atmosphere.

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Back to the game, lots of cool plot developments today! (Don't read ahead, lihlih!)

Who left all these sausages in this ancient tomb?

I'm getting used to switching party members and leaders often. The only ones I don't really have a handle on as lead are Sharla (there's not much to do when nobody needs healing) and Riki (just don't know where to get combos going with him). The solo Melia bit was good, I wish it was longer.

The conversation with the ancestor AI (?) thing was that great cryptic stuff I love in narrative RPGs (like that one spoilery convo in Mass Effect 1), it's intentionally left vague but I gather the implication here is that the High Entia have to breed out of their 'purity' to survive and Melia is the best hope for that. As usual, probably something much deeper going on. Alvis's heritage is intentionally raised as a question mark here too. Speaking of, I knew he was shady! Well, I guessed he might be >_> Of course he still could be playing both sides to his own end.

We knew the Emperor was toast long before we met him, but I am very curious how this will go down exactly. Dunban pulling a sharp turn into "screw destiny" is interesting, given that he was the one all about respecting cultural boundaries the entire rest of our time here. Wonder if he knows more than he is letting on too, like Dickson apparently does. I am really liking Melia a lot here, a bit of time to herself really helped her grow as a character. Love Shulk's intrinsic bond with her too (and Riki's!).

Nemesis Face remains silent, and Metal refers to her as goody two-shoes, and she's all pure white and everything. I'm like 99% sure it's Fiora, and if not then we're being intentionally misled into thinking that. No idea what is going on in any of those sinister villain scenes outside of Alcamoth.

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Glad you're playing the remastered. I'd be mad to see someone playing the Wii or 3DS version when you got QoL improvements in the newest version today.

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Some people still swear by the original for whatever reason.

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Waluigi1 posted...

Some people still swear by the original for whatever reason.

Same weird nostalgiacs who do this for a number of games out there. Though I think Xenoblade is a special case here.

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I haven't seen a single person advocate for the original, and I'm not sure what the arguments would be. Aside from the changes to visuals and music, DE is nothing but quality of life improvements... and even the music can easily be toggled to the original soundtrack.

Wait, maybe if someone truuuuly hates the new character faces, I can see them preferring the Wii version, but man, that's a drop in the bucket compared to all the improvements.

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There will always be someone who prefers the original version of any game, no matter how objectively worse it may seem to be.

Didn't play much today, just did some sidequests.

• Sadly, nobody in Alcamoth reacts to Melia wandering around with her face uncovered, even the NPC who explicitly states how she'd love to see Melia's face uncovered! What's with that!
• After scrolling down the achievements it seems Melia is in fact the last character we get in the party (there's achievs for using Arts 100 times with each character, and after Melia's it goes on to a different type of achievement). Oh well, I like all the ones we have anyway!
• Enemies can chain attack?! Oh hell no.
• It has occurred to me that the Defect in Slay the Spire completely stole Melia's gameplay gimmick lol

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andylt posted...

There will always be someone who prefers the original version of any game, no matter how objectively worse it may seem to be.

yeah but where are these people for Xenoblade

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CaptainOfCrush posted...

Wait, maybe if someone truuuuly hates the new character faces, I can see them preferring the Wii version, but man, that's a drop in the bucket compared to all the improvements.

I'm not sure about now, but I remember back when they first revealed the DE, there was a lot of complaining about the new faces. Which I never understood personally, but yeah idk if most people just got over it or what.

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That's the only complaint I remember, and it's the only "subjective" change that actually comes to mind. Almost everything else in DE is a pure QoL upgrade. And man, someone must have a serious case of closeted anime (love)hate if THAT'S their reason to stan the Wii version, because the original face models weren't exactly beloved classics.

https://media.vandal.net/i/1200x630/4-2020/202042817125053_1.jpg


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No, they were straight bad a lot of times lol.

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I like the original faces

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I never had a problem with them but I do think the new ones are an improvement.

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The old Xenoblade had a better art style - from the comparison picture you can tell that color tone of the original is darker and less 'anime smooth'. I definitely prefer the original in this regard, although the Mechon in DE look really good.

The quality of the faces is mixed - I think the only one that gets a clear upgrade is Melia. Fiora's original face is iffy, but her DE face isn't very good either (her eyes are HUGE for some reason). Shulk is not only a downgrade but looks like an entirely different person at times. DE is the product I'd recommend to people for many, many reasons, but there was something a little something lost in the feel of the game in the transition from original to remake.

None of this is worth giving up how the environments look in upgraded HD, or the numerous gameplay improvements.

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shulk's face was pure garbage on the wii lmao, he wasn't even human

Dickson was the only great Wii face, but human models generally were always terrible, just an understandable cost of running gorgeous large-scale open environments on the Wii

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new Reyn is how i picture Punnyz

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CaptainOfCrush posted...

I haven't seen a single person advocate for the original, and I'm not sure what the arguments would be. Aside from the changes to visuals and music, DE is nothing but quality of life improvements... and even the music can easily be toggled to the original soundtrack.

Wait, maybe if someone truuuuly hates the new character faces, I can see them preferring the Wii version, but man, that's a drop in the bucket compared to all the improvements.

There will always be those weird purists out there.

GuessMyUserName posted...

shulk's face was pure garbage on the wii lmao, he wasn't even human

Dickson was the only great Wii face, but human models generally were always terrible, just an understandable cost of running gorgeous large-scale open environments on the Wii

I never thought much of it at first when the game came out. I excused it for Wii limitations. But looking back, maaaan...

It's like the Final Fantasy VII character models of its generation.

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Dickson looks good no matter what he's doing

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The Last Story had great models!

but it's also one of the worst running games I've ever played so

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GuessMyUserName posted...

The Last Story had great models!

but it's also one of the worst running games I've ever played so

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Rango posted...

I never thought much of it at first when the game came out. I excused it for Wii limitations. But looking back, maaaan...

These are also specifically picked to be the ugliest frames of animation. It looks much better in motion.

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foolm0r0n posted...

These are also specifically picked to be the ugliest frames of animation. It looks much better in motion.

It really doesn't.

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I can understand not liking the new art design for the characters, but actually preferring playing with the original models is still a step too far imo. Those characters looked like they had less polygons that Ganondorf's nose in Ocarina of Time. And that entire game looked like mud on the Wii.

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I like the character designs quite a lot. Shulk looks way nicer here than he does in Smash, imo.

Prison Island was eventful! We meet new player Zanza (VA uncharacteristically not so great!) who seems perfectly placed to be a bad guy, though his last minute talk with Alvis is vague enough that things could go any number of ways. Fiora is also revealed (great scene, great VA from Shulk and Dunban here) but it seems like her mind is not her own, instead that of some grand force who is at odds with Zanza. Someone from Mechonis, if that early scene of Nemesis Face being assembled is right. There's definitely much more going on with the Mechons than we know right now.

We get Monado Lv 2 so Shulk can now slice people up (yeah Zanza's probably not a great dude!), and therefore also Mechons (nice way of confirming what we already figured), and Melia is now a convert to Shulk's revenge plan. The Emperor wasn't a particularly great character but his last lines are good. Metal Face's (Mumkhar I guess?) bloodstained claws inches from Melia's face are just as impactful as they were in the game's intro. Lots more here but you all know what happened! Might have to rewatch these scenes in the Event Theater to make sure I didn't miss any important bits of lore.

Weirdly this very serious and climactic sequence transitions pretty quickly into... shipping wars. There's been a few hints at this but this is way more up front than it has been until now. Dunban is Team Fiora and Sharla is Team Melia, poor Shulk doesn't seem to get much of a say. Personally Melia is way more interesting but Fiora's been gone for the whole game so not really fair to judge yet. Melia has a fake-out leaving but not really, and shady Alvis is taking us through some mountains next. Fun times ahead, the game is still keeping its cards close to its chest regarding the overarching narrative!

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I've always felt something's weird about Shulk's Smash model (I think the hair bugs me the most) but the XB:DE is great

This is 100% not a spoiler to say since it's just some DLC bonus thing but Shulk has a XB2 model as well that I kinda like for doing a very different take

https://i.imgur.com/
NTHNccK.png (added break so you can read the text about how it's not a spoiler first lol)

what's interesting though is that it's actually the closest thing to his original concept art



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hey I like Zanza's VA! I can still hear it when I think to! Prison Island top tier tho

fun realizing that the reason Monado couldn't cut the Face Mechon is obviously because the Monado couldn't cut humans as per the intro

vague is Alvis's middle name. Alvis Vague-and Mysterious.

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I hate Shulk's XB2 model. Takes the couple issues I have with the XBDE model and amplifies them. Ultimate's is really junky too for some reason. Which is weird as Smash 4 is probably the best overall Shulk model.

Prison Island is a fantastic sequence that gets even better on a replay.

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I wouldn't want XB2 to be Shulk's perma model and his face is very simplified but I enjoyed it as a small cameo bonus

Future Connected Shulk is the GOAT

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Oh I didn't know Shulk was in 2, that explains some of the reactions a bit ago. Guessing it's like a KOS-MOS thing. And yeah I like his hair there but I have no complaints about his DE design at all, he looks great.

IDK what the deal with Smash's design is, I didn't mind it until I played this but now looking at it it's just all kinds of wrong. Part of it is the hair, sure, but I think it's also the weird 3D model faces they use in Smash that just don't look good on some characters (I think Chrom looks bad too).

GuessMyUserName posted...

fun realizing that the reason Monado couldn't cut the Face Mechon is obviously because the Monado couldn't cut humans as per the intro

Yes this was a great subtle reveal, they really threw me off guard ages ago with that 'they have funny lines on it maybe that's why' thing.

I think I like Lady Meyneth!Fiora better than regular Fiora.

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I had always assumed the Red lines were Homs blood flowing through them, which is why none of the metal could be sliced through. I don't remember if that ever got explained in game, but that was my first thought seeing that scene when I first played it.

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I never realized just how bad Smash Shulk's face is, until recently when I won a match and got a specific winning screen that showed his face a certain angle and it really fucked me up lol. I was just suddenly like ew wtf I've never noticed just how off it is until this moment.

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• I foolishly spend ages looking for a Fossil Monkey and Dark Grapes for Colony 6 before remembering about the whole trade system thing. Whoops!
• Adding Valak Mountains to the list of 'places that look and sound really cool at night'. Though the day music is good, too.
• Alvis leads us to the spot Shulk was rescued by Dickson all those years ago, hmm. Riki and Dunban have a very interesting heart to heart conversation here too that seems pretty relevant to the plot. Very interesting indeed...
• Fiora and Mumkhar and Egil oh my! Another set of cool scenes here on the glacier, and a pretty tough boss fight with Mumkhar. I have Dunban out front just because it feels right. I meet the status effect 'instant death' for the first time, too. Well that's just mean! Shulk and Dunban do well in the cutscenes as usual, but Melia is the one who saves the day.
• Mumkhar's motivations seem straightforward enough, Egil on the other hand is an unknown. He says he's an agent of Meyneth but Meyneth herself had earlier said she was keeping her return hidden from him. And something about stopping the terror of Bionis. The Faces have also outlived their usefulness, so it seems like he's just gonna fling them at Shulk to see how he deals with it. This is also the second time the term 'double-edged sword' has been used in relation to the Monado and Zanza, everyone in the know is very surprised that he would release the Monado that I guess can hurt his plans somehow. I feel we're a ways off from finding the answers to that.
• Mechonis hype! The place descriptor now having the orange Mechonis on the right is so cool, I love touches like that.
• Hi Dickson! Bye Dickson! He heads off with Alvis to do some mysterious stuff no doubt.
• I notice for the first time in the Affinity thing that Melia is 88 years old, I'm sure this hasn't been mentioned before! Guess the High Entia have some 1000 year lifespan thing going on. Also grizzled wise father figure war vet Dunban is 30 lmao.

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andylt posted...

* I foolishly spend ages looking for a Fossil Monkey and Dark Grapes for Colony 6 before remembering about the whole trade system thing. Whoops!

I guess playing on expert takes the exclamation marks off the map. This was one helpful part of the DE is that they would mark the items you need for quests.

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colliding posted...

I guess playing on expert takes the exclamation marks off the map. This was one helpful part of the DE is that they would mark the items you need for quests.

The ones you need for building Colony 6 don't get exclamation marks on the map like normal quests.

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mnkboy907 posted...

The ones you need for building Colony 6 don't get exclamation marks on the map like normal quests.

Which makes a certain thing in the late game Black Liver Beans torture to collect

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You'll get future flashes about Colony 6 items when you collect them for the first time, but good luck remembering that you need them...!

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Last year I got some really good RNG for Colony 6 early on, but those damn beans wrecked me.

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XB:DE lets you snag some necessary collectopedias from the Time Attack shop, including the infamous Black Liver Bean

... unfortunately I don't think they're available until reaching the final time attack portal at the end of the final dungeon

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LeonhartFour posted...

You'll get future flashes about Colony 6 items when you collect them for the first time, but good luck remembering that you need them...!

I hadn't picked up that those flashes were specifically for Colony 6 stuff, but it's still not much help. I always want to put the first item of each kind directly into the Collectopedia anyway! At least then I can see which region the item was in.

colliding posted...

I guess playing on expert takes the exclamation marks off the map. This was one helpful part of the DE is that they would mark the items you need for quests.

Yeah as mnk says the Colony 6 ones for some reason don't get exclamation marks, even if you're currently on that bit of the reconstruction quest. And jeez the original game didn't have exclamation marks at all? Yikes no wonder people complained about the sidequests lol.

Q about the blue collectible items: are they completely random within each region, or are there spawn points that specifically favour one kind of item over another etc, I've wondered this for a while as some seem to spawn a specific kind of thing but it could just be coincidence. Let's hope these apparently infamous beans don't ruin my day whenever they come up.

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There are some spawn points that "kinda sorta" favor the rare drops, but I wouldn't say it's very specific. IMO it's only worth looking up if you get well and truly stuck on an item.

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Certain ones only show up certain time of day or during certain weather conditions so finding one that you can't find it all it's probably one of those

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andylt posted...

I hadn't picked up that those flashes were specifically for Colony 6 stuff

They aren't, they can happen for regular side quests too.

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