Xenoblade Chronicles - Wii

[Mr.Jeff]

Not sure how reliable this is but after doing a google you can supposedly get them from the watchtower in the reconstruction area at night.

Also, discovered that someone else had already done what I was in the middle of with regards to gifting. Oh well.

Here's the link which contains a lot more information and also even bigger spoilers so be warned if you don't have your 7th party member! You have been warned.

Link

[Mallet]

Talking of spoilers, i was just reading the latest gamesTM and their review has a screenshot which most would consider a pretty big spoiler. They have a screen shot of Shulk's affinity tree with the other party members and there's someone on it I haven't recruited yet, although I had figured it out that I would be able to recruit them so no big deal for me.

I haven't clicked the link in Mr.Jeff's post but I imagine it is the 7th member he mentions. Not as bad as the KOTOR spoiler review but still gamesTM

[daveodeth]

Why when I look up is there water, lots and lots of water.

[Nespresso]

Fuck yes! As soon as you get "Mist Oil" apply some to Sharla

[Alan Stock]

Thought I was reaching the climax at 80+ hours in... but hell no, looks like there's still a way to go! Epic game indeed. Loving the environments as you progress, I have just reached

the fallen arm, brilliant!

. I think the premise of the world being set on a huge titan is awesome especially for the scenery. It's so cool to see a giant head in the distance with glowing red eyes and see the sheer scale of the body parts around you.

[Nespresso]

23 hours in and just arrived at Makna Forrest.

omgitlookssofreakinggood

[Davros sock drawer]

I would really like to be at home playing this right now. Fucking work.

[Ste Pickford]

I would really like to be at home playing this right now. Fucking work.

I had a lovely lazy Sunday of doing nothing but play this. I stuck it on at 11am, but half-heartedly planned to stop and watch footy later on. When I finally stopped playing it was almost 7pm.

Fantastic!

[stefcha]

Fuck yes! As soon as you get "Mist Oil" apply some to Sharla

I've just realised I put it on Reyn and didn't even think about using it on Sharla because the stats weren't right. Even a bare torsoed Reyn disn't put me off, or make me think to try otherwise. Bloody stats

[Mr.Jeff]

I had to accept a fairly big loss in stats for Dunban yesterday when I was sorting his armor out yesterday sinc ehis "optimum" armour made him looks like he'd been doing intimate things with a rainbow metal turtle before getting into a car crash.

Hit a slight wall last night as I was stuck between the thought sof grinding the last few levels for quests and the thought of trying to increase everyone's affintiy to view the heart to hearts. Think my best bet might just be finding a trader you has collectables which award +3 affinity to a character and just go nuts trading for them.

Edit: Although there is an item which gives +4. Hmm...

[Davros sock drawer]

I had a lovely lazy Sunday of doing nothing but play this. I stuck it on at 11am, but half-heartedly planned to stop and watch footy later on. When I finally stopped playing it was almost 7pm.

Fantastic!

I did much the same on Saturday. Missus on one sofa with the iPad (addicted to Dungeon Raid), me on the other sofa playing Xenoblade. Bliss.

We've both come to accept the cacophany of voices in the battles, and now derive much pleasure from taking the piss out of them. Fighting Xord we were both convinced he kept saying "You put a bra on me!"...

[polygon_monkey]

I loved this wee exchange in battle (spoiler if you're not about 40 hours in):

Sharla: "It's rather quiet without Reyn and Riki"

Dunban: "Let's keep the team that way"

Mailia: "Dunban, Hero of the Homs, you do have a mean streak"

[scottcr]

back from my holidays and ready to get some serious Xenoblade action in.

[Nespresso]

I had to accept a fairly big loss in stats for Dunban yesterday when I was sorting his armor out yesterday sinc ehis "optimum" armour made him looks like he'd been doing intimate things with a rainbow metal turtle before getting into a car crash.

Hit a slight wall last night as I was stuck between the thought sof grinding the last few levels for quests and the thought of trying to increase everyone's affintiy to view the heart to hearts. Think my best bet might just be finding a trader you has collectables which award +3 affinity to a character and just go nuts trading for them.

Edit: Although there is an item which gives +4. Hmm...

Trading gives you affinity as well?

I really want to raise my affinity amongst my party now (which consists of four peeps). So far only Shulk and Reyn have a big fat embarrassing pink smiling heart. As soon as I get an addition to the party I switch to that character (after reading about someone saying that it improves affinity faster that way). So far though I'm 25 hours in, the party is level 33 but upping' the affinity is not going as fast as I'd like.

I've only been able to do two Heart-to-Hearts so far and that's including the one with Fiora.

[Mr.Jeff]

By trading I was meaning getting collectables from named NPC's in towns and then gifting those collectables from one party member to another.

If you're seriously planning to do all the heart to hearts, then highly recommend switching your team around as much as possible for battles and even collecting quests as I've discovered to my dismay that at higher levels you're left with either battling or gifting to raise the myriad affinity between 7 different party members.

Personally, I'm beginning to think that the heart to hearts are a bit of a waste of time which seems a shame since it's meant to give you a look at some of the personal interactions between the characters.

[scottcr]

I've only managed on heart to heart... is there an easy way to see the 'heart' requirements when you find one?

[Talk Show Host]

I've only managed on heart to heart... is there an easy way to see the 'heart' requirements when you find one?

There is a seperate menu for them, next to affinity I think.

[Alan Stock]

Trading gives you affinity as well?

I really want to raise my affinity amongst my party now (which consists of four peeps). So far only Shulk and Reyn have a big fat embarrassing pink smiling heart. As soon as I get an addition to the party I switch to that character (after reading about someone saying that it improves affinity faster that way). So far though I'm 25 hours in, the party is level 33 but upping' the affinity is not going as fast as I'd like.

I've only been able to do two Heart-to-Hearts so far and that's including the one with Fiora.

Dude, seriously?! You are a fraction of the way through the game, you don't need to worry about affinity that much. Just concentrate on enjoying the game with a spread of different characters, the affinity boosts will just come as you play with different combinations. Also a good tip is if you want combat variety, switch to your low affinity character for the town bits as they'll get the affinity boosts for the conversation bits. I reached my first full pink heart between one set of characters at about level 70 and with no problems to show for it. The hearts to hearts you can revisit whenever you want, and you will during the course of the game anyway.

[Alan Stock]

Tedious generic videogame environment ahoy

80+ hours spoiler

Mechon Field, the level design and look is turgid. Very dissapointing and it's massive . Why do all RPGs have to have a crap bit like this, didn't FFX teach anyone anything? At least Fiora has some cool talent arts which decimate the mechon.

[Mr.Jeff]

In relation to that:

Inside it does perhaps look a bit dull but when you reach the top level and even have to go outside, it's still really impressive. Probably the most limiting in terms of explorability though.

With regards to Fiora, the very best thing about her is that she doesn't need Shulk's stupid enchant to damage mechon. In fact, if you want to bypass Shulk and enchant altogether, have a party of Fiora, Melia (Ether arts don't require enchant either) and Sharla for the heals and you'll be set. You may need to break out Reyn/Dunban in a few places for some of the more challenging fights, but overall, I found that working pretty well!

[Ferine]

That area has a definite saving grace: the music. In fact I'll just plonk it in the following spoiler box, as the title's a bit of a give away.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p45gdP2OKmU

Also, I highly recommend people invest in upgrading Shulk's Enchant Art. I believe I'm doing an extra 500 damage per hit to Mechon because of it — especially useful for me as I invest in Haste/Double Attack — and the buff lasts longer than most fights.

[Alan Stock]

Just got to the next area and the visuals are awesome, shame the level design is still a bit tedious. At least there's not so many damned ladders!

RE: Mr Jeff

I haven't used Shulk since I arrived on Mechonis (his affinity is so high that I'm concentrating on Fiora and other party members), I just have the party equipped with the anti-Mechon weaponry you can get in the Machina village, and there's also a hidden shop in Mechon field (outside the Mechonis) where you can buy better versions of the anti mechon weaponry. In fact some of it's so good that it's the best weaponry available at the moment for some of the characters anyway.

[Nespresso]

Took a pic of an amazing vista in Makna Forest. Obviously only click if you've already been there (shoddy quality, I know).

[daveodeth]

Oh god, I picked Reyn as my lead character and then pressed jump. The horror!

[Ferine]

Oh god, I picked Reyn as my lead character and then pressed jump. The horror!

The final addition to your party is the worst. Both of their jump samples sound like they're being garrotted.

[daveodeth]

It is not however alley fucking oop. I got some weird looks when that happened.

[Alan Stock]

Took a pic of an amazing vista in Makna Forest. Obviously only click if you've already been there (shoddy quality, I know).

By the way, if you hate the massive yellow arrow that appears at the top of the screen, which I do, you can turn it off in the Settings (under the save menu).

[Nespresso]

By the way, if you hate the massive yellow arrow that appears at the top of the screen, which I do, you can turn it off in the Settings (under the save menu).

Ah never realised that you can also turn that off as well. Cheers for that.

[Stoikovich]

I love getting to high up places and.... JUMP!

I realised I hadn't checked through my items, weapons, gems, abilites etc for a while and so I dutifully reorganised and arranged everything. Took me a good hour!

Plus I had a happy moment when the mechanics of the shared abilities dawned on me.

I'm still a bit unclear on how to most effectively approach gem crafting, but I have loads of level 1 gems to practice with.

After looking around the net I found the below, some people may find them useful- I know they've helped me to finished some specific monster quests - but be mindful of spoilers!

All quests, items etc googledocs spreadsheet

Unique monster locations map

[Alan Stock]

Nice one MA7. I spent literally half an hour last night looking for one quest bloke in a city before finally giving up and looking online - the amount of wandering in the towns and time spent looking for quest locations/people are the two things that really mar my enjoyment of this game sometimes!

On the plus side, I'm reaching the end of the game now and finally the enemies are a decent challenge; usually by questing and so forth I am a couple of levels above the story mobs. But here I have had to do lots of questing to get this level and also I have to make good use of gems, equipment and abilities. It makes the game so much more enjoyable when you have to really consider every decision before and after a battle. It's one of the strange shortcomings of RPGs like this that challenge and enjoyment can be reduced because you're too high level for the enemies. The only way to prevent that would be to have dynamic levelling of mobs, or in places like where I am, where the creators can be certain that at that point in the game, you are likely to have reached a certain level due to the available quests/loot before that point. Hopefully the whole end-game will be like this!

PS - Gem crafting. Does anyone else hate it? I find it really chorelike and you get so many gems from quests you don't often need to craft your own. It's only towards the end now that I've been able to craft more unique ones. MA7, I recommend you just plough ahead with your experiments, it's easiest to learn by doing. You will end up with an inventory full of damned crystals anyway. Also check the physical manual as it explains the process better than the in-game tutorials.