Xenoblade Chronicles 2

Buy the Blade Shackle accessories for the Chapter 3 fight. Also focus on just one of the two enemies - once you get one to 50% it becomes easy.

Played it past the opening and got to the first open area on the way to the first town. Promptly died 5 times from aggroing adds much higher level than me every time I tried to fight something. When I was about to quit and go to bed, I figured I'd run straight to the town, and cut into the wrong place I guess since suddenly a territorial ape or whatever it was called promptly ended that journey. It was level 82. Not a bad thing, as I got sort of an early EQ vibe from it with the roaming mobs. Difference from X1 though seemed to be that the density of mobs was much higher and while there are a few 80+ mobs roaming around, there were also a lot of level 12-16 mobs in the same areas as level 6-9 which caused instant death. First impressions are really positive though. Don't mind the dub that much either except the whole William Shatner way of talking.

That said, if I die, do the items I pick up from the gathering points still remain, or am I reset to the point where I first got to the location I respawn at? I think I keep them since I checked a chest I gathered in between the deaths, and it remained open after I died.

Only real gripe I have had so far is that I really have issues with the button configuration B - A. My muscle memory from those buttons are from xbox, and I jump 90% of the time a button press config says A. Same with the quicktime events of the art that uses B or the scavenging mechanic that uses A. I press the wrong buttons then too. Same problem I have with going from PS to Xbox controllers with the X. X to me is the lower button, not left. However, none of the other buttons are problematic because of they don't match. A-B though on the nintendo config is actually bothering me. I have to think about it, but my fingers press before I think when I just see the prompt, then go "fuck! wrong button". No doubt a temporary thing, but it's been horribly annoying for the first 3 hours because it keeps happening. Even in menus when I automatically click "B" to progress forwards when it is actually "back" just because I am so used to the lower button going forwards and the right being cancel.

EDIT: Also used my remaining two vacation days now to have half of today and tomorrow off and half of Friday. Have a meeting to discuss my salary on Thursday so have to go to that, though not expecting much Have dec 22 - jan 1 off too, so hopefully be done with this for January releases (Ni-No Kuni 2 and Monster Hunter World).

That Ape NM is always in the first open world area of every Xenoblade game. Always with a set path so pretty easy to avoid if you pay attention.

They made it harder to tell what monster will aggro you in this game compared to past, but in general herbivore type animals won't attack you. Mostly got to watch out for fucking birds flying above you.

Only real gripe I have had so far is that I really have issues with the button configuration B - A. My muscle memory from those buttons are from xbox, and I jump 90% of the time a button press config says A. Same with the quicktime events of the art that uses B or the scavenging mechanic that uses A. I press the wrong buttons then too. Same problem I have with going from PS to Xbox controllers with the X. X to me is the lower button, not left. However, none of the other buttons are problematic because of they don't match. A-B though on the nintendo config is actually bothering me. I have to think about it, but my fingers press before I think when I just see the prompt, then go "fuck! wrong button". No doubt a temporary thing, but it's been horribly annoying for the first 3 hours because it keeps happening. Even in menus when I automatically click "B" to progress forwards when it is actually "back" just because I am so used to the lower button going forwards and the right being cancel.

Click to expand...

Nintendo has always used that configuration - it's what the industry standard was (and still is in Japan, even for Playstation I believe) until Sony USA (I think) swapped the layout for the North American version of the PS1 or PS2. Then Microsoft followed suit with the Xbox.

It sucks if you are switching consoles a lot.

For those further in the game, I am currently in the first town just after the opening part and spent all my money salvaging for the crane parts and I can progress the main story (going after Nel). Are sidequests timed? Do they poof if I progress the story? I kind of want to get a full party before I start doing them.

I found a couple more in Gormott when I started chapter 4; they are out in the Upper Right area, kinda hidden. One is to climb up the waterfall or something and save a girl. I think the other one started in the Nopon town.

Yeah there isn't a ton of mundane MMO kill/collect quests like there was in XCX.

Finished chapter 3 late last night before bed. Probably shouldn't have since it made me want to play another hour to follow the main quest a bit more, which lead to another hour. That entire sequence, man...

So this was pretty cool: apparently every rare blade has a Heart-to-Heart which gives it's own event. I did one of these and got another event to spawn in Torigoth that gave a new sidequest. Really nice touch.

working through Chapter 5 now, havent had great luck with getting rare blades, but my team is getting pretty well fleshed out.

stacking the proper blade types to change your "class" to fit is really helpful. For the longest time I was only running around with 1-2 blades on everyone like a dummy, missing out on the good passive bonus' and not getting the WP for other equipped blades or the extra gathering boosts from collection points. Always run with a full set of 2 (and later on 3 when that opens) for all your chars, even if they are the junky common blades.

it seems you level WP into weapon types no matter which blades can use them, so you have like a "mega-lance skill page" and any points you have accrued while having a blade with a megalance goes towards that. Later on if you get a rare blade with a mega-lance they don't have to start from zero, so you can slowly build up your weapon types that way. I missed out on a lot of WP grinding from that, so don't make that mistake and keep max blades on your guys with the right roles (tnk / atk / hlr) and a mix of weapons if you can.

I'm liking the game so far, up to 4 characters now! I put the Noppon on the bench, his "spinning cutter!" and "meh meh meh" squawking is probably the thing I dislike the most.

I can’t wait to bench Tora. I’m about 35 hours in, playing through Chapter 4, I think, and absolutely loving it. And being able to play in handheld mode while my kids are watching things like Princess Elena and fucking Descendants is a huge plus.

I'm a little ways into chapter 5 now and I still can't put this down. It's really reminding me of an old PS1/PS2 JRPG; towns feel alive and are distinct, and the sidequests have actual characters and meaning behind them. The bankable exp idea is great as I can do all these sidequests and not trivialize the main story stuff. I'm actually engaged with the main story too, Pyra is a good character even though she looks like nothing more than fanservice heh. Combat feels good now that I've done some actual fights where all the elements come into play and it's totally satisfying when you pull off those big combos.