Just hit Gaur Plain. Loving this game. Combat is super fun, it looks incredible and the music is great. Story is shaping up nicely too, didn't expect what they did with Fiora at all.
Someone on the localisation team was obviously a football fan too, Reyn yelling at me to get stuck in and not lose the head is awesome.
Someone on the localisation team was obviously a football fan too, Reyn yelling at me to get stuck in and not lose the head is awesome.
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yea
weight lowers your agility stat (1:1).
because no other games have even tried to do anything like this, which is sad.
Ah ok, that makes more sense. Guess I'll go get all those as well!
What?
IIRC, Dickson was basically Shulk's surrogate dad. He's the one that found him in the ice cave and pretty much raised and looked after him. He didn't know that Dickson only did this not because he cared for Shulk but because he was caring for Zanza's vessel. The game is over dramatic at times yeah, but I loved Dickson's design he just stands out so much compared to everybody else.
has anyone received their order from Amazon?
I just got a notification that my order is delayed (it had been due to arrive today). Except the game is in stock on amazon with 2 day shipping, I bet if I bought it again it would arrive thursday.
I don't really understand
I just got a notification that my order is delayed (it had been due to arrive today). Except the game is in stock on amazon with 2 day shipping, I bet if I bought it again it would arrive thursday.
I don't really understand
Which characters in particular? Because as far as I remember, everyone but Riki had a fairly satisfying arc - and even Riki had a significant degree of depth to his characterisation.
Yeah, honestly I was a bit disappointed when I arrived there this time around. Remembered it to be much cooler looking.
Their arcs are mostly fine and all, simple but probably effective, but the actual characters themselves are often about as deep as a puddle.
It looks like I'll be lucky after all and get my DE today! For those who have the art book, can I check it without spoiling me too much? Otherwise, I can go until around which page? Thanks!
Doesn't help that Uraya came and totally did the "glowing trees in darkness" aesthetic ten times better lol
The first time I enter Satorl Marsh ten years ago was at night and I was really impressed. Yesterday I enter DE Satorl Marsh and my reaction was ".....Kingdom of Uraya?". The environment and music is really similar lol.
Yeah, that's definitely part of the reason lol.
Man, I wish I could jump into XB2 right away. Damn Animal Crossing got its hooks on the GF. Maybe I should get another Switch just for myself... 🤔
I'm at 50 hours mark and it's not full party yet. But I did all sidequests so the number might be inflated a bit.
There's some pretty major spoilers in there. Idk if it'll be a good idea to look lol.
I forgot my exact play time first time around but I think 40-60 hours in lol
Damn I think I'm taking things decently slowly but you people are on another level, it took me about 30/35 hours to get the full party
You get most of them around maybe 40% of the way through, though the last character shows up past the halfway mark.
Even the first half? Generally, you got spoilers by the end of the book.
I'm so slow haha, i'm 45 hours in and just got to Eryth Sea, though everytime I get in a new area, I do every single sidequest (I'm at ... around 190 sidequests done atm), collect everything I can for colony 6, 100% the collectopaedia, fight every unique monster I can fight, explore the whole map, etc. I'm a masochist.
I'm in the same boat.
Also as said above, Uraya is just a better looking Satorl Marsh lol
Eryth Sea is gorgeous though
I'm in the same boat.
Also as said above, Uraya is just a better looking Satorl Marsh lol
Eryth Sea is gorgeous though
It was probably a lot less.
I was pretty bad, got lost for a good few hours, and explored everywhere the first time through. Now I'm slightly less worse this time and will probably get there in less time lol.
Yeah cause of art of characters and their progression and stuff. Maybe the last few pages since it's storyboard artwork and it looks pretty rough but yeah still kinda spoiler-ish
I'll probably take a look at it again soon
Reached Alcamoth today and – just as expected – it's here where those QoL improvements really start to shine.
I was dreading that part of the game, but the quest and NPC markers made it breeze. Two sweeps, one by day and one by night, and I think I got everything.
Now back to Eryth Sea...
I was dreading that part of the game, but the quest and NPC markers made it breeze. Two sweeps, one by day and one by night, and I think I got everything.
Now back to Eryth Sea...
Satorl does it better imo. You go from dingy swamp to this magnificent awe inspiring landscape in the blink of an eye. It shows how you can transform the total look and feel of an area just by being a bit creative. The new monsters, the music, the visuals.
Satorl is the goat imo.
Ok, I'll restrain myself to take a peak. I'll keep it for after the playthrough.
I finally got Melia in my party... and I didn't expect that her first reaction to Shulk would have been to slap him, poor Shulk.
Now I tried to use Melia as my party leader, as I did for the other characters (Dunban and Sharla) after they joined my party. Differently from them, however, I found her gameplay quite nice! I think that I will give her a more serious try as my leader than I thought.
I am now reading the trademarks here to get some tips how to use her at best. The main problem will be the main party set up, though. I feel that Shulk is needed. Between Reyn and Dunban, I prefer the former; I use the latter sometimes, when exploring or doing sidequests, but I always prefer Reyn for serious battles. Sharla is essential too, for her healing abilities, but maybe less than Reyn who tanks most of the attacks? It is a pity that Shulk has only a single healing ability, otherwise I would have used as I did for Rex in Xenoblade 2.
Now I tried to use Melia as my party leader, as I did for the other characters (Dunban and Sharla) after they joined my party. Differently from them, however, I found her gameplay quite nice! I think that I will give her a more serious try as my leader than I thought.
I am now reading the trademarks here to get some tips how to use her at best. The main problem will be the main party set up, though. I feel that Shulk is needed. Between Reyn and Dunban, I prefer the former; I use the latter sometimes, when exploring or doing sidequests, but I always prefer Reyn for serious battles. Sharla is essential too, for her healing abilities, but maybe less than Reyn who tanks most of the attacks? It is a pity that Shulk has only a single healing ability, otherwise I would have used as I did for Rex in Xenoblade 2.
Quickly looked through it and the first page I flipped to was a spoiler and it was around 30 pages in lol. Even the story boards have major spoilers so don't even look at that.
Yeah, it'll probably be better to look after you beat it or at least towards the final hours
I remember the first time Incoming played I was instantly hooked.
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I don't really wanna nail one down as better than they other as they are so vastly different and the difference is so crucial. Like you said, the thing that Satorl Marsh does that Uraya doesn't do is that it starts you out in this drab looking swamp. "ugh, what a nasty spot ...so ugly and muddy and grey" And then you hit night time and this music hits and everything starts glowing and it just so completely transforms your perception of the entire area. Uraya is just nice looking Uraya at all times with a clear "let's do this thing everyone liked again but now all the time!" vibe.
That is why Satorl Marsh is so great. Not because it looks nicer in a screenshot but because of how much it transforms.
Okay...what's your source on this? The wiki doesn't say anything about it and I can't find it anywhere.
Thanks mate, I'll put it on my desk for later this summer. I have the chance to play through it for a first time so I'll avoid spoilers obviously. Thanks again!
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linked in the threadmarks and op (in another one of Lazy's posts). the source is a JP wiki that nobody bothered to translate
Here is how I do it:
- Save
- Buy all weapons and armor from the shop
- Load
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I think this beautiful exploit works because of FC and the way it also saves your settings (volume, subtitles, display etc) across both individual saves. So neat :D
Someone tell me, are the rewards for the time trials actually worth it or are they all just stupid swimsuit costumes?
I love using Melia as my lead, and your main priority will be to have other party members who will draw aggro like mad and keep it without dying - Dunban and Riki are really good at this. The key to making Dunban work and work so dang well is to pump his agility, which involves light or no clothing, Agility gems, Arts and Skills that raise Agility, and everything you can. He does a large amount of damage and then will have no problems holding aggro. Riki is also really good cause his Arts dish out tons of damage and thus aggro, and he's go so much HP he can easily take a beating. Riki can solo plenty of bosses, really.
As far as healing goes, there are so many ways to heal thyself, a dedicated healer like Sharla ends up being a crutch. Besides Shulk's and Riki's Arts, there are Skills (especially Skill Links to other characters), gems, and plenty of ways to pass HP around. Sharla is fine in really tough situations, but most of the time, she's unnecessary and ends up dragging fights out by not having a lot of damage output. Melia herself has healing capabilities with her Arts. Sharla's great, but after getting four characters she rarely makes the team.
Yep it's a great exploit :>
You can use noponstones that you get from the challenge to trade for gems.
Longer than 7R.
So really nothing imperative, then. That's kinda what I was wondering about. Thanks!
Thank you for your suggestions! I tried to use Melia-Reyn-Shulk in some battles for the moment, against enemies of the same level (or 1-2 level higher), and the first thing I noticed is really what you told me now - without Sharla, the fights were much faster! Reyn takes most of the damage, and Shulk is able to heal him when needed. At the moment Melia has only two elemental Arts (Fire and Lightning), but her potential is already evident.
I think i will follow your suggestion about trying Dunban too, after changing his clothes (or removing, at this point) and his gems. I am then particularly intereted in Riki - he hasn't joined the party yet, but according to your description he can perfectly work as a tank too, in place od Reyn or Dunban.
after that there you have to deal with 2 dungeons, so its not just a couple of hours, a bit more for sure.
What you just explained is my exact problem! We're shown how Shulk is found by Dickson at the start of Chapter 2 but no mention is made prior to this or even after (or at least not for a long while if my memory isn't serving me well here) that he also basically raised Shulk. How Chapter 1 ends and Chapter 2 begins is the perfect example of how bad this is, actually. When the party see the Mechon invading everyone is concerned for Dunban but not a one raises the question of where Dickson is, Shulk included. When Shulk and Reyn set off, both have said their goodbyes to Dunban - but Dickson is simply seen watching them instead of either character engaging with him or vice versa. Their relationship is pretty much nonexistent but the player is meant to feel something when Dickson dies. It just doesn't work, because the game doesn't even try and he's really such a small presence in the game. And if anything, Dunban is more of a father to Shulk - Riki points this out later in the game as I recall and he's not wrong.
Apart from Shulk and Melia I don't think a single one of them had what I'd consider a satisfying arc. They have moments where they're briefly interesting but there's really no depth to any of it. Riki is there for light comic relief and the occasional advice and that's pretty much it, which is fine because it's not like he eats up screen time or anything - but I would hardly say he has "a significant degree of depth to his characterisation", I'm really not sure what you could possibly mean by that. I'll cover the rest in spoilers below.
Fiora is introduced from the get-go as someone who loves Shulk for...reasons. God knows what those reasons are though. I certainly never believed in their apparent love for one another with the tiring cliche of it all, which is amazingly repeated in the end. When she returns there's briefly some interest to be had involving her possession by Meyneth and her new body but the game ultimately never takes her anywhere and undoes the latter issue in the ending anyway, which is like a double insult on top of the fact that this ending practically repeats their introduction to us as an audience at Outlook Park.
Their childhood pal, Reyn, is terrible. Does he even have an arc? I legit don't think so, not one that I can recall. He seems to exist solely to support Shulk and would possibly die of lack of purpose without him. He has an obvious crush on Sharla but the game goes nowhere with this because the latter is introduced as someone fighting to get back her boyfriend who, hilariously, makes a return halfway or three quarters through the game in an attempt to do something with her after ages of nothing ever since the player at least had the drama involving JuJu and Xord. After that it forgets about her again and still nothing happens between her and Reyn.
Dunban is the closest to being on par with Shulk and Melia but, from my experience, I felt that the game gave him less time than he deserved. As I wrote above regarding Dickson as Shulk's apparent father figure, Riki points out that this is actually Dunban in a way, as someone who watches over over both him and Fiora (but for some reason not Reyn lol). But the game never explored this particularly well I don't think, so much so that that one cutscene is all I can recall about it. And that's a shame because Dunban is introduced as being quite interesting, recovering from his use of the Monado a year before, and Fiora's death should probably impact him the most and yet the game disappointly goes for making him stoic, constantly stoic.
Incidentally, on a related note to the last paragraph, I kind of think the lack of parentage and its exploration is a problem of sorts in this game and is certainly why Melia stands out favourably, because so much goes on with her and her family that makes you care for her a lot more. I kind of think XC is too reliant on the affinity system as a means of showing connections between everyone else in the world rather than the immediate cast that you spend most of your time with. You can strike a good balance here, which I think the sequel demonstrates well with a combination of characters with far greater depth and better side quests in exchange for a simpler affinity system. Oddly, I really think XC forgets to do anything with a number of these characters instead, as I've hopefully argued well.
This is just the main characters though, the party members specifically. I've explained in a few posts now why I think Dickson is awful but there's also Mumkhar and the High Entia traitor. Apart from that, it's the side characters that are notably better than others. There's Melia's immediate family and the main villain for most of the game is fantastic and gets a great send-off. Apart from that, I don't know what to tell anyone who's responded to me about these things. I never saw a whole lot to care about when it came to the characters the first time I played the game and that hasn't really changed.
Their childhood pal, Reyn, is terrible. Does he even have an arc? I legit don't think so, not one that I can recall. He seems to exist solely to support Shulk and would possibly die of lack of purpose without him. He has an obvious crush on Sharla but the game goes nowhere with this because the latter is introduced as someone fighting to get back her boyfriend who, hilariously, makes a return halfway or three quarters through the game in an attempt to do something with her after ages of nothing ever since the player at least had the drama involving JuJu and Xord. After that it forgets about her again and still nothing happens between her and Reyn.
Dunban is the closest to being on par with Shulk and Melia but, from my experience, I felt that the game gave him less time than he deserved. As I wrote above regarding Dickson as Shulk's apparent father figure, Riki points out that this is actually Dunban in a way, as someone who watches over over both him and Fiora (but for some reason not Reyn lol). But the game never explored this particularly well I don't think, so much so that that one cutscene is all I can recall about it. And that's a shame because Dunban is introduced as being quite interesting, recovering from his use of the Monado a year before, and Fiora's death should probably impact him the most and yet the game disappointly goes for making him stoic, constantly stoic.
Incidentally, on a related note to the last paragraph, I kind of think the lack of parentage and its exploration is a problem of sorts in this game and is certainly why Melia stands out favourably, because so much goes on with her and her family that makes you care for her a lot more. I kind of think XC is too reliant on the affinity system as a means of showing connections between everyone else in the world rather than the immediate cast that you spend most of your time with. You can strike a good balance here, which I think the sequel demonstrates well with a combination of characters with far greater depth and better side quests in exchange for a simpler affinity system. Oddly, I really think XC forgets to do anything with a number of these characters instead, as I've hopefully argued well.
This is just the main characters though, the party members specifically. I've explained in a few posts now why I think Dickson is awful but there's also Mumkhar and the High Entia traitor. Apart from that, it's the side characters that are notably better than others. There's Melia's immediate family and the main villain for most of the game is fantastic and gets a great send-off. Apart from that, I don't know what to tell anyone who's responded to me about these things. I never saw a whole lot to care about when it came to the characters the first time I played the game and that hasn't really changed.