Xenoblade - New Monolith RPG for Wii

mrtomaytohead wrote:

So people guessing 'early' was it before or after:

Spoiler:

the reveal that Mechons housed Homs inside them? And when did you realize that was coming?

It's a bit weird for me, only experiencing this as a LP, usually out of the corner of my eye / audio overlayed on another game.

Spoiler:

For my part, I haven't gotten to this reveal yet 60 hours in. I figured that out based on this Mumkhar thing, and the whole "Monado can't cut humans" + "Monado can't hurt metal mechon" + "eery red streaks emphasized in giant mechon cutscenes" combination.

danopian wrote:
mrtomaytohead wrote:

So people guessing 'early' was it before or after:

Spoiler:

the reveal that Mechons housed Homs inside them? And when did you realize that was coming?

It's a bit weird for me, only experiencing this as a LP, usually out of the corner of my eye / audio overlayed on another game.

Spoiler:

For my part, I haven't gotten to this reveal yet 60 hours in. I figured that out based on this Mumkhar thing, and the whole "Monado can't cut humans" + "Monado can't hurt metal mechon" + "eery red streaks emphasized in giant mechon cutscenes" combination.

Spoiler:

I get it from the whole "This game is a poorly written mess that stole most of it's ideas from bad to mediocre anime" part of the game. Which started about 10 minutes in and continued to about the 50+ hour mark when I quit playing.

Voice actor, for me. Still, confirmation was a bit jarring.

Two-week winter break this year. Will hopefully get some time with this! Sitting at about the 50 hour point.

If only Wii games could be controlled with the WiiU Gamepad, not just displayed.

Yea, so just got to the spot where we learn that

Spoiler:

Mumakhar retains autonomy and apparent Homs consciousness - and can leave the Mechon!

Identity wasn't a surprise, but that was! Now, to grind some levels and kick butt!

I hereby call to order the first meeting of the GWJ Xenoblade Chronicles Is So Freaking Long support group (GWJXCISFLSG). Welcome, everybody.

My name is Danopian and I have been trying to finish Xenoblade for two years. I love it when I'm playing it, but when I'm not and consider playing it it sounds like work, if for no other reason than it's just so long and there's no end in sight. I made a list of the games I'm going to play this year and put all the half-finished stuff at the top, so there's a definite place I'm going to give Xenoblade and am committed to finishing it before I move on to others things (like Divinity: Original Sin and Donkey Kong: Tropical Freeze). Hoping that will help; so far I've stuck to the list fairly well.

I'm thinking I need some ground rules for myself to keep myself moving...

- Give up on trying to collect all the collectibles in every area. The rewards just aren't worth the time, even though it's fun poking around areas for them.
- Don't waste time crafting new gems - I seem to be finding good enough ones off of enemies and such not to need to do that.
- Only stop to sift through my loot and min/max equipment when my characters start having trouble in combat and/or when I enter a new area with new vendors.
- Keep moving through the story. Stop for time sensitive quests, then leave uninteresting quests unfinished.
- Before I start up again I'm going to find a Youtube playlist of cutscenes and catch up on what was happening in the story before I last played so I'm not lost and get discouraged.

Any other good ideas are welcome.

Thanks, everybody. And remember: "We can definitely do this!"

Yeah that sounds like a plan. Someday I think I should go back. I only have 2 unfinished Wii pile games and that is one. Would like to knock that system off my list and get a Wii U.

Every time I play this game I'm like "I will only do mission stuff". 3 hours later all I have done are side quests that a meaningless. I need help I tells ya. I need help.

Danopian, thanks for the formal announcement. Your ground rules are great, and I'm going to adopt them.

I'm sad I won't see the heart-to-hearts, but grinding affinity is quite clearly an unending slog. So, onward!

Baron Of Hell wrote:

Every time I play this game I'm like "I will only do mission stuff". 3 hours later all I have done are side quests that a meaningless. I need help I tells ya. I need help.

This.

Always this.

Meanwhile, my niece has my old Wii with my old 30 hour save, so I gotta start again from scratch. The other night I ended up nodding off while wandering the village talking to people.

I may have to just say "f*ck it" to the side quest stuff as well, even if it does give some nice cash.

I'm at a Mechon base. Sharla says there'll be no turning back now. Even though I can still fast travel, go completely off course for who knows how long still.

I'm going to treat her words as true and push on. Got about an hour in this morning. Hoping I'll get a bit more in before taking the kids and dog to the pet store. That's going to be an adventure to rival Xenoblade.

Zoso1701 wrote:

Sharla says there'll be no turning back now. ... I'm going to treat her words as true and push on.

I like this plan. Treat the character's urgency about getting places as if it actually had any meaning. THERE'S NO TIME TO LOSE! GET TO THE CHOPPER NEXT WAYPOINT!

Need to get through DA:I before I can dive back into my baby save for this game... I have a feeling it might turn into a year-long game for me hahahaha Not a bad thing, per se.

2015's Classic game is shaping up to be Xenoblade: Chronicles!

Seriously though, my goal is to finish this game before X releases. Has to be 2015, then!

I think I put slightly over 100 hours into the game. However, I did reach level 99 and get every city up to 5 hearts of love for me (which takes a LOT of sidequesting, let me tell you). So if you want to do everything, maybe 100 hours or a tad more.

Minarchist wrote:

I think I put slightly over 100 hours into the game. However, I did reach level 99 and get every city up to 5 hearts of love for me (which takes a LOT of sidequesting, let me tell you). So if you want to do everything, maybe 100 hours or a tad more.

Yyyyyeah, I'm wondering how much of that is worth it. So I loaded this up yesterday to see if I could get through the beginning, and.... I spent over three hours essentially wandering the environment killing monsters, finding collectibles, and getting killed by select monsters. I'm glad this game is quite forgiving in regards to death. You don't lose anything but physical progress.

Even so, I only just started the first dungeon by hour 4.5 of the game, and decided to call it quits after I figured level 10 with bad ass armor can take out that giant caterpillar.

No. No you can't. You f*cking die.

I actually enjoyed what was ultimately a relaxing time, and I certainly did a lot more around Colony 9 than I had in my first playthrough. In fact, I'm not even sure I touched the Collectoepedia, which is a mistake because you get friggin' gems that way. But I dunno how much I can manage that.

If I recall, though, Colony 9 is one of the bigger areas when it comes to sheer number of quests for a while? I know it's not physically big, but I don't recall as many people to give side quests in future regions.

Minarchist wrote:

I think I put slightly over 100 hours into the game. However, I did reach level 99 and get every city up to 5 hearts of love for me (which takes a LOT of sidequesting, let me tell you). So if you want to do everything, maybe 100 hours or a tad more.

I'm definitely the slowest person ever in games. I put 100 hours into this as well, but I was nowhere near level 99 and I definitely didn't have time to even pay attention to my city ratings. I was literally barely high enough level to defeat the last boss so didn't know I was going to be locked into that area at the time.

However I'm the guy who took 60 hours to beat Metal Gear Solid 4 on BOTH playthroughs.

ccesarano wrote:

If I recall, though, Colony 9 is one of the bigger areas when it comes to sheer number of quests for a while? I know it's not physically big, but I don't recall as many people to give side quests in future regions.

Um...yeah, I guess that's accurate. IIRC, there's only 5? I think 5 main quest hubs. So while each one is massive, there aren't 20 of them or anything.

I think it's worth playing fairly far through the game even if you're skipping a lot of the MMO-style side work, because the battle system gets really interesting with some of the other cast members. It's a bit weird, really. Each individual person never really changes much in their battle style; my typical skill order with Shulk didn't change much from the beginning of the game to the end. What keeps things interesting is that if you choose to control later cast members instead of him (and you should!), you get drastically different combat ideas. Melia, in particular, plays like almost nothing I've ever encountered before, and they put a bunch of magic-only enemies that only she is really handled to defeat just outside the area you first meet up with her, to double down on that. That keeps things pretty interesting. Play for 10 hours as each character and you've kept things pretty varied.

Looks like about 4 hours is the amount I was able to put in this weekend. I've always appreciated that, once you start progressing the story, it moves fairly quickly. In that time, I hit two system-save worthy cut scenes. There's been quite a twist I didn't expect, but now I'm in another sprawling zone and couldn't find my way around quickly enough to complete a quest goal before kiddos arose this morning.

at 54 hours, It's a bit daunting to know that there's that much left to go. But, we can definitely do this.

My love of this game is so severely tested by the fact that it just looks like total butts

I put about 70 hours in over a year and half or so, then let it sit. For the last little while I thought I would pick up the 3ds rehash, but I may just watch cut scenes on youtube and dream about Xenoblade X instead... (sigh)

All this talk is making me happy I'm just watching a (really good) let's play of this game, usually while I'm doing something else. Too bad the guy is only about 2/3rds done, but plans to go back to 5 updates a week from here on out.

marcelp wrote:

My love of this game is so severely tested by the fact that it just looks like total butts

GWJ led me to discover the world of Steam and PC games I missed during my WoW/Blizz exclusive phase. So, I'm playing several older games that by today's standards look like butt.

I'm impressed the Wii could handle this massive world. Some of the views are truly magnificent. The brain just has to uprez the images a bit. My biggest display gripe is the mini-map. It's horrible. The arrow never seems to be in the exact spot as the player, and it's genuinely not helpful at all for any of the side quests (which you are greatly incentivized to do).

Tomayto, that's a lot of "Let's Plays." I'm excited that X will address my biggest gripes. Gamepad play will let me finish the game quicker. Playing while the wife watches Project Runway = completion! HD should help with the map, and it looks like many more checkpoints/quest markers will exist in X.

Freezing rain meant a two-hour delay of school, so I got in an hour of playtime! 56 hours, and I feel I might be nearing a climax. That said, a long unmentioned story thread was just brought up that will probably have to resolve first.

marcelp wrote:

My love of this game is so severely tested by the fact that it just looks like total butts :(

Certis mentionned doing this a few months ago on the podcast, so I don't feel too bad suggesting it: If you have a beefy enough PC, have you tried to run it in Dolphin? That's how I played the game last year and, while it does not solve the problem of some low quality textures and the low-polygon count models, the game does not hurt the eyes as much when running in 720p/1080p on a big screen TV.

Also, for the record, I beat the game at level 86 and it took me 120 hours. (I'm usually slow at games.) I would get the 3DS version if I could transfer my save data, but since that's not going to happen, I will skip and just wait for X. I think I would like to unlock the last skill tree for each character and play a New Game+, I will admit.

Zoso1701 wrote:

Tomayto, that's a lot of "Let's Plays."

Yup. Dude's on espisode 75, and expects to get over 100 and edits out all the redundant battles and travel time and only shows new stuff, sidequests and main story. I cannot imagine how long and boring it would have been if he just showed it all.

ccesarano wrote:
Minarchist wrote:

I think I put slightly over 100 hours into the game. However, I did reach level 99 and get every city up to 5 hearts of love for me (which takes a LOT of sidequesting, let me tell you). So if you want to do everything, maybe 100 hours or a tad more.

Yyyyyeah, I'm wondering how much of that is worth it. So I loaded this up yesterday to see if I could get through the beginning, and.... I spent over three hours essentially wandering the environment killing monsters, finding collectibles, and getting killed by select monsters. I'm glad this game is quite forgiving in regards to death. You don't lose anything but physical progress.

Even so, I only just started the first dungeon by hour 4.5 of the game, and decided to call it quits after I figured level 10 with bad ass armor can take out that giant caterpillar.

No. No you can't. You f*cking die.

I actually enjoyed what was ultimately a relaxing time, and I certainly did a lot more around Colony 9 than I had in my first playthrough. In fact, I'm not even sure I touched the Collectoepedia, which is a mistake because you get friggin' gems that way. But I dunno how much I can manage that.

I hate to say this, but it sounds like you're playing the game wrong. Or at least you're playing it in a way you're going to end up hating it the whole time.

Are you trying to 100% it? If you are then I get it, but by the 5th hour you should be able to beat that caterpillar when you go through the dungeon for a second time. I don't even know what level that is, but you definitely need your new sword.

The game is forgiving about death because it's designed as an MMO with enemies you aren't able to kill until later. If something one shots you then you aren't meant to fight it. Come back later. If you come back later and get it halfway down, you still need to come back later. There's a certain amount of skill that comes from using your abilities at the right moment, but if you aren't leveled enough there are definitely enemies you can't kill in some areas. There's a certain amount of letting go one has to do in an MMO when encountering things you just can't do or just can't defeat. Spending an hour grinding may help but probably won't. A lot of times it takes moving on and coming back later, hours later. So while you could potentially grind your way up to defeating a badass enemy, chances are you're better off moving the story along and coming back in a few hours with new skills, partners, etc. This isn't Everquest where grinding is the end all be all of leveling, this is more akin to newer MMOs where the leveling comes from doing the quests and exploring.

garion333 wrote:

If something one shots you then you aren't meant to fight it. Come back later. If you come back later and get it halfway down, you still need to come back later. There's a certain amount of skill that comes from using your abilities at the right moment, but if you aren't leveled enough there are definitely enemies you can't kill in some areas.

Figuring this out was really important to me enjoying the game. I beat my head against that caterpillar and some ridiculous buff rabbit thing for an hour before I realized I could just walk around them and come back later, and sure enough, I ROFLstomped their snide faces later without having to grind.

If I remember right, there's an MMO-esque color scheme to the enemy names (or the banner behind the name) which should give you a gauge as to how easy the fight is going to be. Not sure about bosses, but I think the game should give you an indication as to whether or not you're going to be able to kill something.

I agree with garion. Do the quests as you get them (and if you don't have any quests yet, stop faffing around and progress the storyline), and don't fight the monsters as you encounter them. When you encounter a monster if it's name is written in red, just run away because you will always die.

shoptroll wrote:

If I remember right, there's an MMO-esque color scheme to the enemy names (or the banner behind the name) which should give you a gauge as to how easy the fight is going to be. Not sure about bosses, but I think the game should give you an indication as to whether or not you're going to be able to kill something.

Yes. IIRC, Red is "RUN AWAY!", Yellow is above your level but still possible, either blue or gray is at your level, the other's just below it, and green is easy peasy? Something like that.

I think there's also a boss/large monster signifier separate from those, but I can't remember off-hand.

I progressed decently far in the game back in 2013, so I'm familiar with the idea of foes you have to return to in order to beat. I just have to readjust to it is all. Think of it more like Dragon's Dogma.