Page 48 • Xenoblade Chronicles X • Gaming • Wii U • Eurogamer.net

Duffking 5 Oct 2016 00:05:39 16,964 posts
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@Youthist I think that indicates that killing it will contribute to your squads progress in the current active mission (the beastie counts that appear in the corner of your screen)

DangerousDave_87 5 Oct 2016 00:39:36 7,074 posts
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You're spot on. Those are target enemies for squad missions. If you kill them you get tickets which you can trade in at the Barracks for materials, which in turn can be used to upgrade your gear or complete gathering missions.

DangerousDave_87 12 Oct 2016 10:18:43 7,074 posts
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So it's been around 15 hours since I got my Skell and I have to say it's quite the game changer. Each of the continents i've explored still look amazing, but the sense of scale is obviously diminished somewhat. It also doesn't look quite as epic as it does from the ground, as your characters cut through the long grass, looking up at distant hills and mountains.

The combat also feels a lot more basic compared to fighting on foot. I'm simply spamming attacks and occasionally freezing enemies in place. It's not nearly as engaging.

There are brief moments where the camera zooms into the Skell cockpit, and whilst I realise that all of my arts get replenished at this precise moment, i'm often unable to use any of them until the camera has returned to it's default view. What's that about, does anybody know?

I've also no idea on how the Overdrive works with Skells. Guess I should really be going back to the manual!

On the plus side, i've been enjoying a number of the side missions and affinity missions. They're genuinely far more engaging than the main story and often involve some interesting concepts.

Edited by DangerousDave_87 at 10:19:15 12-10-2016

Duffking 12 Oct 2016 10:19:22 16,964 posts
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The last of the 5 areas never felt that big to me either since I never saw it on foot really.

Youthist 24 Oct 2016 16:52:51 14,723 posts
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So quick question - in XB1 it was key that you changed the character that you controlled in order to build Affinity with other members of your group. It sort of forced you to learn how to fight with all the characters if you wanted to max the affinity out. However in this one - I am not sure that is needed? Is there any reason to fight with someone else as leader in the group outside of the main avatar?

Rhaegyr 24 Oct 2016 17:01:07 5,499 posts
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@Youthist

I've played around 30+ hours and done a fair few affinity quests - I'm pretty sure it's not needed as all the prerequisites are for your main character's affinity towards other people.

Just got back into this - forgot how fucking great it was when you finally get into the rhythm of things.

Youthist 24 Oct 2016 17:27:22 14,723 posts
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It is a bit lame if true. IIRC the differences between the characters fighting abilities in XB1 was quite different so was good to mix up who you were fighting with, and at the same time built affinity over time by doing so. Now I am not sure of the point of changing who you are controlling?

Rhaegyr 24 Oct 2016 17:56:34 5,499 posts
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Think I misread your question.

You definitely do need to change party members as your avatar needs to gain affinity with all of them in order to do their affinity mission(s).

I just don't think you need to foster affinity between party members (discounting your avatar). Not come across an affinity mission which has listed this as a prerequisite yet anyway.

Youthist 24 Oct 2016 18:02:25 14,723 posts
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Agreed - you need to keep mixing up who is in the squad - however, who you actually control / who is leading the party itself - it seems you should keep your own avatar as the leader / the one you are controlling in battle - unless there is some reason why swapping to another has a benefit (outside of just making it a little more varied I guess - but even then classes means you can essentially switch completely your attributes to match other party members if you want to change fighting style?)

Deleted user 24 October 2016 20:27:28

I used to switch to the blonde woman you meet at the start quite a lot as she has a shadow walk (or something) special ability that allows you to run past mobs unobserved. Got me out of (and into) trouble a few times. There is no need to switch to any other lead character though. I sometimes did if i wanted to test their abilities in battle after I'd switched or upgraded, but found my "main" was pretty crap when controlled by AI.

DangerousDave_87 25 Oct 2016 07:18:19 7,074 posts
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I always stuck to the main character, too. I never considered switching to use Shadow Walk though! That's a genuinely great tip. The amount of missions you'll do in which you have to try and navigate around something twice your own level...

chrisp 26 Oct 2016 18:43:29 1,164 posts
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This is one game I think could do with a physical manual.

I spent about 150 hours or so on it, which may well be the most I've spent on any game, but never felt like I fully understood all the mechanics.

I did really enjoy it overall, though (would have been a bit silly pouring so much time into it otherwise). I reached about 89% completion and then just felt I'd seen/done enough. Too much grinding required to get to 100% and I had/have too many games in my backlog to justify spending any more time on it.

I quite enjoyed playing around with the mining probe setup on the game pad - that was almost a game in itself.

Edited by chrisp at 18:46:42 26-10-2016

Youthist 16 Nov 2016 17:49:33 14,723 posts
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So I am about 35 hours about to start chapter 5. Been on 4 of the 5 continents - but have been disappointed so far that there appears to be not much on them - a lot of roaming about in fields etc - are there other towns and stuff in the game? - also finding NLA too big with so many what appear to be pointless conversations as I wander about. XB1 was one of my favourite games for exploring but there seems to be a lack of things that you can actually do in this in terms of quest variation and places to explore and discover in the broad map?

Deleted user 16 November 2016 18:07:12

There are no other towns. There are some enemy bases and some caves, but nothing smart like nla.

The quests should be the main story, some standard fetch / kill quests and specific quests for various npcs. You get different ones as you complete the main story arc.

Youthist 16 Nov 2016 18:11:33 14,723 posts
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I am missing things like the Nopon town in the tree in XB1 and other bases for different species throughout XB1. It felt more epic and progressive.

Deleted user 16 November 2016 18:18:34

I've not played xb1, but I've played a couple of hundred hours of this thing and I've read that people didn't think it as epic as the first. I enjoyed finding the mining sites and completing all the side quests and trying to get max affinity. However, the main quest started to wain in interest for me towards the end and i never finished it. Thoroughly enjoyed my time with the game though.

As for nopon, there are about 4 groups of them, but no large town. They're some other species that come into it as you play more of the main quest arc (at least 2 more major ones). I guess one of those does bring with it a hub of sorts.

GloatingSwine 16 Nov 2016 18:40:04 3,916 posts
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I do think XBC was the better game. It benefited from having more focus on its narrative whilst still offering the same level of optional sidequest content, and whilst the world was smaller that basically just meant it had all the best bits.

Also the fixed small cast had way more life than the interchangeable plebs of XBCX.

Armoured_Bear 16 Nov 2016 18:59:18 31,233 posts
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I have 30% off this till the end of the month, wish i knew if it was going to get a Switch Port.

CosmicFuzz 16 Nov 2016 19:04:24 32,632 posts
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Yeah I've had it on my rental list for ages, but would rather play it on Switch if I can. Always easiest for me to have these big games on the go.

Rhaegyr 16 Nov 2016 19:48:28 5,499 posts
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Great game. Exploring the worlds is fantastic.

Tatsu can fuck right off though.

DangerousDave_87 16 Nov 2016 23:29:54 7,074 posts
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Tatsu not want to fuck off! Why is Rhaegyr such horrible person?

SteJones 20 Nov 2016 22:16:41 432 posts
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GloatingSwine wrote:
I do think XBC was the better game. It benefited from having more focus on its narrative whilst still offering the same level of optional sidequest content, and whilst the world was smaller that basically just meant it had all the best bits.

Also the fixed small cast had way more life than the interchangeable plebs of XBCX.

Yep, better main story. Better characters. More interesting world.

The only thing I think XCX is better at is the battle mechanics. And graphics obviously.

GloatingSwine 20 Nov 2016 22:33:42 3,916 posts
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@SteJones I'm not even sure about the battle mechanics. Mostly because I really liked using Melia when I got the hang of how her summons work, and trading off between cycling them, which ones to hold for buffs, and dropkicking fools. There was nobody even slightly like that in XCX, and things felt a bit more spammy and less deliberate.

Rogueywon 20 Nov 2016 23:15:26 12,387 posts
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@Rhaegyr Tatsu.

Because Jar Jar Binks wasn't annoying enough the first time around.

GloatingSwine 21 Nov 2016 00:05:13 3,916 posts
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Tatsu was no Riki either.

Xenoblade Chronicles X • Page 48