[ag-my001]

EDIT: I was wondering, but is (late-game location/boss spoiler) the battle with Lorithia the Mt. Gagazet Seymour/Matador battle of this game? It's the only fight that gave me trouble. I had to retry it about four times, I think. I never lost to any boss before them. My usual Riki (me), Shulk, and Dunban party wasn't cutting it. I had to switch Dunban for Melia (me controlling her) to win, but even then it felt a bit challenging

This does seem to be that one boss for many people. It's a combination of how the boss works to attack and be attacked, combined with environmental dangers that people forget how to overcome.

As for time spent side-questing, I agree that it's overkill to go for completion on the first run. I'm currently doing my second playthrough (non-NG+), and I'm only going for completion because I know where things are, know how long they'll take, and freely use the spreadsheet to see where trading can save me time and effort.

[SecretMoblin]

The reason that one boss is considered... well, that one boss is because you can't just rush in and beat it with the strategy you've been using and abusing for the entire game, unless you've been using and abusing Melia. It takes some thought, it takes ordering your team around a bit, and it takes patience.

[ZenaxPure]

EDIT: I was wondering, but is (late-game location/boss spoiler) the battle with Lorithia the Mt. Gagazet Seymour/Matador battle of this game? It's the only fight that gave me trouble. I had to retry it about four times, I think. I never lost to any boss before them. My usual Riki (me), Shulk, and Dunban party wasn't cutting it. I had to switch Dunban for Melia (me controlling her) to win, but even then it felt a bit challenging

I will be honest, I think the main problem with that fight is that it's just poorly designed. For whatever reason the NPCs absolutely love walking into those pools (or in Riki's case he just stands there on the edge doing nothing) and the game fools you into thinking the adds need to be killed (color based adds each with a different effect when they "activate". Compare that to almost any other game with a similar mechanic and you 90% of the time have to kill those colored balls). The first time I tried the fight I used the same party setup as you except I controlled Shulk. I probably could of won the fight but I was really sick of Dunban running off into the pool of water and then dying which happened multiple times. I also barely burned any of the boss' hp away because I was trying to take down those adds. I got pretty annoyed with the fight/ai, reset the game, switched my control to Dunban, told the party to focus on Lorithia (ignoring the adds) and then killed her without a single death. It's just a dumb fight, not really that hard.

[Mauricio_Magus]

EDIT: I was wondering, but is (late-game location/boss spoiler) the battle with Lorithia the Mt. Gagazet Seymour/Matador battle of this game? It's the only fight that gave me trouble. I had to retry it about four times, I think. I never lost to any boss before them. My usual Riki (me), Shulk, and Dunban party wasn't cutting it. I had to switch Dunban for Melia (me controlling her) to win, but even then it felt a bit challenging

That god damn boss battle... I had to grind like crazy to defeat that boss.

Also, I never did side quests... I basically rushed through the whole game and finished it in under 50 hours

[RawPower]

Is the text still small and barely readable in the US version?

[Mauricio_Magus]

Is the text still small and barely readable in the US version?

I believe the game is the same as the PAL version in... basically every aspect.

[Bisnic]

Is the text still small and barely readable in the US version?

Text is fine?

Unless your vision sucks or your TV is too small.

[Rebel Leader]

I believe the game is the same as the PAL version in... basically every aspect.

It's probably just formatted to work on NTSC consoles. Even the title screen is PAL

[massoluk]

I believe the game is the same as the PAL version in... basically every aspect.

Well, every aspect but the save file.

[Adam Prime]

Is the text still small and barely readable in the US version?

Which text exactly? I never once thought this in my entire playthrough of the game. Maybe it's your TV?

[chaosblade]

The reason that one boss is considered... well, that one boss is because you can't just rush in and beat it with the strategy you've been using and abusing for the entire game, unless you've been using and abusing Melia. It takes some thought, it takes ordering your team around a bit, and it takes patience.

I actually did exactly this and won. It wasn't the smoothest battle, but still.

I'll probably try doing it wrong again for the sake of doing it wrong. But chances are it won't matter because the further I get in the game on this playthrough, the more I'm getting overleveled. Wouldn't be surprised if I'm level 80+ for that fight at the rate I'm going. I'm almost level 50 going into Valak Mountain

Need to decide if I'm going to clear all the uniques 100%, or just whatever I can kill up to the final boss. If I'm doing all of them, I probably need to start doing quests so I can get the extra skill trees.

[Wyndstryker]

Little tip against the Disciple Lorithia battle.

You can actually tell your teammates to move towards you so this way, you just need to watch your party members from falling into them pools. Was able to beat it with my usual team but it was a long slug fest.

[EvilMario]

The reason that one boss is considered... well, that one boss is because you can't just rush in and beat it with the strategy you've been using and abusing for the entire game, unless you've been using and abusing Melia. It takes some thought, it takes ordering your team around a bit, and it takes patience.

I didn't end up using Melia. Using Riki's Ether attacks, along with his status attack like poison let me break the boss pretty easily. Melia is definitely the easiest route, but not the only one.

[ShadowgeistX]

EDIT: I was wondering, but is (late-game location/boss spoiler) the battle with Lorithia the Mt. Gagazet Seymour/Matador battle of this game? It's the only fight that gave me trouble. I had to retry it about four times, I think. I never lost to any boss before them. My usual Riki (me), Shulk, and Dunban party wasn't cutting it. I had to switch Dunban for Melia (me controlling her) to win, but even then it felt a bit challenging

lol, the usual team is what I used to beat that boss in the end after getting demolished with almost every team imaginable. There was a lot of Monado power abusing and hoping the team doesn't end up getting themselves killed.

[Roto13]

Well, every aspect but the save file.

Which can be converted.

[RawPower]

I imported the UK version months ago, but the text was really tiny. I figured it might have been the PAL-to-NTSC conversion, and I wanted to make sure.

[Roto13]

On my Change Equipment screen, one of my bonuses on Dunban (Agility Up 50) is green. What's up with that?

[Like the hat?]

If I just got to the point where I defeated (boss spoilers) xord in the underground area about how far into the game am I, percentwise? I'm about 15 hours of playing in but I've been doing a lot of side mission stuff.

[Roto13]

If I just got to the point where I defeated (boss spoilers) xord in the underground area about how far into the game am I, percentwise? I'm about 15 hours of playing in but I've been doing a lot of side mission stuff.

Like 15% or 20%. Not very far.

[The Technomancer]

Oh yeah, that boss battle. I'll give it this: it taught me how to own with Melia. It just came too late in the game.

[massoluk]

On my Change Equipment screen, one of my bonuses on Dunban (Agility Up 50) is green. What's up with that?

That's the most bonus you can get out of Equipment Gems for Agility. If you want more, it will have to be from Skill Trees or Skill Link.

[Like the hat?]

Like 15% or 20%. Not very far.

sweet. loving this game.

[SecretMoblin]

That's the most bonus you can get out of Equipment Gems for Agility. If you want more, it will have to be from Skill Trees or Skill Link.

Or leveling up, or different gear. The cap is probably at around the right point, actually.

[Roto13]

That's the most bonus you can get out of Equipment Gems for Agility. If you want more, it will have to be from Skill Trees or Skill Link.

Oh. Well then!

[Starwolf_UK]

I imported the UK version months ago, but the text was really tiny. I figured it might have been the PAL-to-NTSC conversion, and I wanted to make sure.

Are you sure you set the Wii to 16:9. I remember back in the European thread we had people playing in 4:3 on a 16:9 TV which is bad due to stretching the image but the game being 16:9 only also adds borders for players on 4:3. Using 3/4 of the screen height makes everything 25% smaller which could make all the difference.

I found this text perfectly fine (if I was playing in 4:3 with screen forced to 4:3* it would be too small though...):

Note: The and everything else would not be as sharp on a real Wii due to *...also imagine it is 480 pixels high rather than 576...

*-Which I normally do for Wii games since its 640x480 either way due to the anamorphic widescreen issue so I might as well maximise pixel density to minimise jaggles.

[Nub]

I just got to Makna Forest and for some reason i'ts only letting me carry 4 and a half pages out of 10 of collectibles. Do I need to buy a bigger bag or something?

[dragonlife]

I just got to Makna Forest and for some reason i'ts only letting me carry 4 and a half pages out of 10 of collectibles. Do I need to buy a bigger bag or something?

Do you mean crystals? It's 10 pages for ALL of them, not per level (I, II, III, etc). You'll have to go make some gems or throw away some.

[ZenaxPure]

Do you mean crystals? It's 10 pages for ALL of them, not per level (I, II, III, etc). You'll have to go make some gems or throw away some.

Yeah, I'd suggest to everyone to go through your gems every once in a while and just vendor some. You'll find that most of them are ones you will probably never use for one reason or another. In my case I found myself never bothering with the cloak ones (aggro distance reduction) and just sold those without a second thought.

Also should probably vendor 90% of the ones that are below the current level of which you are using. Unless you are confident in your ability to craft them into a higher level they will be pretty much useless. As a whole the game gives you far more gems than you will ever use. At the start of the game I found myself crafting them all but there really isn't a need to that I ever found.

- What is tension? How do I know how much tension I have? Why is it good(or bad)?

Easiest way to see tension is by paying attention to the character portraits in combat. The more depressed someone looks the lower their tension. The more angry they look the higher. The cap for it I believe is when there is flames behind their picture.

As for it's use I can't recall if it does anything the higher it is but I do remember the lower it is the higher chance the character's seem to miss. Also Riki has an ability that can only be used at higher levels of tension.

[Seanspeed]

I think I asked this a while back, but I got banned before I got to see any responses, so pardon me for asking again:

- What is tension? How do I know how much tension I have? Why is it good(or bad)?

I've looked through the tutorials and haven't found anything on it.

Also, I'm finding/creating gems that reduce or extend 'duration' of effects of gems. What does that mean? I wasn't aware any gems had time limits or whatever on them.

[McNum]

Tension is the mood of the characters. You might have noticed that when a battle goes well, you'll have the character portraits yelling with a flaming background. That's high Tension. If they're sulking with a blue background, it's low Tension, and you should run your playable character over next to them and cheer them up. (Yes, really.)

You gain Tension by hitting the enemy, doing criticals (more if you hit the "That was AWESOME!" QTE) , and so on. You lose it by missing the enemy (unless you hit the "You'll get it next time!" QTE), taking damage, and being affected by enemy auras. Getting KO'd will drain a lot of Tension, too, so remember to give the character you revive a pat on the back before running off, they appreciate it.

What it does? It's basically a minor buff or debuff to more or less everything. More Agility, more damage, and so on. This also means that low Tension is a cascading failure, by the way. Low Agility means hitting less, means drop in Tension. On the other hand, as long as you stay alive, it's easy enough to stay at flaming rage tension as you just keep pummeling the enemy when you hit that.

[Roto13]

Some arts only work with high tension as well.

[Seanspeed]

Easiest way to see tension is by paying attention to the character portraits in combat. The more depressed someone looks the lower their tension. The more angry they look the higher. The cap for it I believe is when there is flames behind their picture. As for it's use I can't recall if it does anything the higher it is but I do remember the lower it is the higher chance the character's seem to miss. Also Riki has an ability that can only be used at higher levels of tension.

Tension is the mood of the characters. You might have noticed that when a battle goes well, you'll have the character portraits yelling with a flaming background. That's high Tension. If they're sulking with a blue background, it's low Tension, and you should run your playable character over next to them and cheer them up. (Yes, really.) You gain Tension by hitting the enemy, doing criticals (more if you hit the "That was AWESOME!" QTE) , and so on. You lose it by missing the enemy (unless you hit the "You'll get it next time!" QTE), taking damage, and being affected by enemy auras. Getting KO'd will drain a lot of Tension, too, so remember to give the character you revive a pat on the back before running off, they appreciate it. What it does? It's basically a minor buff or debuff to more or less everything. More Agility, more damage, and so on. This also means that low Tension is a cascading failure, by the way. Low Agility means hitting less, means drop in Tension. On the other hand, as long as you stay alive, it's easy enough to stay at flaming rage tension as you just keep pummeling the enemy when you hit that.

Some arts only work with high tension as well.

Appreciate the quick answers. I had never even noticed that my character's faces changed. I'd seen the flames although I had no idea what it meant. And I also did notice that I could usually 'encourage' a player I just revived.

I've been trying to work on the Affinity of some of my lesser used characters, so knowing when or why I should be encouraging will help.

[Bisnic]

Man i hate trying to unlock Sharla's 4th tree... I need 4 stars affinity with Frontier Village and i've been at 3 for a while now and all i seem to have left to do is a bunch of stupid quests asking for me to collect "humming" and "rumble" parts, which is basically running all over the Bionis worlds hoping that damn blue orb in a corner is the one i need... Ugh.

Maybe there is a few quests left somewhere in Frontier village, but looking all those damn floors at different time of the day is frustrating, maybe even more than looking for npcs in the ridiculous size of Alcamoth.

Somebody kill me!!

[Roto13]

Man i hate trying to unlock Sharla's 4th tree... I need 4 stars affinity with Frontier Village and i've been at 3 for a while now and all i seem to have left to do is a bunch of stupid quests asking for me to collect "humming" and "rumble" parts, which is basically running all over the Bionis worlds hoping that damn blue orb in a corner is the one i need... Ugh. Maybe there is a few quests left somewhere in Frontier village, but looking all those damn floors at different time of the day is frustrating, maybe even more than looking for npcs in the ridiculous size of Alcamoth. Somebody kill me!!

Can't you just look at the spreadsheet and compare it to your quest list for that area and see what quests you're missing?

[SecretMoblin]

Or trade! Trading is a great and easy way to get items you need for quests.

[burgerdog]

Man i hate trying to unlock Sharla's 4th tree... I need 4 stars affinity with Frontier Village and i've been at 3 for a while now and all i seem to have left to do is a bunch of stupid quests asking for me to collect "humming" and "rumble" parts, which is basically running all over the Bionis worlds hoping that damn blue orb in a corner is the one i need... Ugh. Maybe there is a few quests left somewhere in Frontier village, but looking all those damn floors at different time of the day is frustrating, maybe even more than looking for npcs in the ridiculous size of Alcamoth. Somebody kill me!!

Always check if you can trade for quest items.

[DragonGirl]

I imported the UK version months ago, but the text was really tiny. I figured it might have been the PAL-to-NTSC conversion, and I wanted to make sure.

I have the US release and the menu text is very small. I imagine it would be fine if I owned an HD TV.

[Papercuts]

How long do I have to do the timed quests at Alcamoth? I'm at Sword Valley and have to talk to Dickson to progress here.

[Bisnic]

How long do I have to do the timed quests at Alcamoth? I'm at Sword Valley and have to talk to Dickson to progress here.

You still have at least 4 more zones to do after Sword Valley i heard.

[dragonlife]

Just beat the game. What a ride. The last few hours were certainly something.

Anyway, did anyone else really love the English voice acting? I thought everyone's (party members) voice was perfect. The localization in general was great.

Also, Riki <3<3<3 I never really like the cute mascot characters in RPGs, but everything about Riki was great. Cute voice. Cute personality. And some fucking adorable equipment here and there. Plus, he's a beast in battle... so fun to play as.

[Wyndstryker]

Just beat the game. What a ride. The last few hours were certainly something. Anyway, did anyone else really love the English voice acting? I thought everyone's (party members) voice was perfect. The localization in general was great. Also, Riki <3<3<3 I never really like the cute mascot characters in RPGs, but everything about Riki was great. Cute voice. Cute personality. And some fucking adorable equipment here and there. Plus, he's a beast in battle... so fun to play as.

I loved the VA. Melia's voice works so well imo. And Riki is an awesome character, exact same sentiments.

I just wished this was an actual scene and was voiced.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7EhTlce71E

[dragonlife]

I loved the VA. Melia's voice works so well imo. And Riki is an awesome character, exact same sentiments. I just wished this was an actual scene and was voiced. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y7EhTlce71E

Damn, I didn't even think to do that on my playthrough. That's pretty nice.

[Exeunt]

Over 26 hours in now with my party at about level 34 and about to leave Satorl Marsh; I'm still really enjoying the game. The area I just discovered felt like it might be a bit of a drag (except for the music) until night came and all the lights started filling the air. Incredible. The music subtly changing as you move from area to area was a great touch and I think my favourite track from the Satorl Marsh was the night music with minimal vocals. The Ignas kind of felt like a rehash of the Tirkins from the Bionis' leg though. I hope the upper areas shake things up a little, though I'm sure they will look pretty regardless. If nothing else, Xenoblade certainly features some breathtaking landscapes.

And oddly enough, I would actually downplay the complaint I had in my last post about the plot being too weak/predictable. While the one element is pretty clear, I actually became more interested when I talked to one of the NPCs in Colony 9 and all but found out that Xord used to be her father. I'm actually more invested in finding out what's going to happen/what's behind the transformed faced Mechon even though their nature is no longer a complete secret. Sure, a lot of the dialogue is pretty cheesy but at least there's enough of a hook to keep you following the story or give you motivation to move away from subquests. In any case, it's definitely most tempting to follow when there is a villain actively threatening the party so I have been doing a lot of quests lately. I have to wonder what Dickson is on about as well... My biggest complaint would instead be that some of the cutscenes stretch on a little longer than I'd like; I'm aware that they are completely skippable but I would like to see as much and have as much context as I can during my first playthrough of the game. But was the scene with Shulk asking Dunban permission to keep the Monado really necessary for example? I felt like everything in that bit was pretty much implied at that point and didn't need to be dwelled upon. I feel like some of the less important cutscenes overstay their welcome.

On the note of quests, I question why some of them have you arbitrarily return to the person who gave you the assignment whereas others just let you be. There doesn't seem to be any reason for why this is so (unless I am missing something) in most cases unless the person gives you another quest immediately afterwords; is the game trying to tell me that there is something in the NPC's area I should be checking out (like new quests) or something? That's part of the quest system I haven't quite figured out.

I also have a question about some of the quests that expire for those who have gotten far enough or beaten the game: the expiring quests in the Refugee Camp made sense when it became clear that Juju and the gang were leaving, but now I'm finding more in Colony 6. Are the quests here tied to a specific level of construction or something—as in, if I "level up" the city do certain quests become unavailable/impossible to complete? Or is it strictly reaching a certain point in the storyline and I can upgrade the city as soon as possible without missing out?

On that note, I suppose I will also ask: is it always made clear when your "last chance" to complete the quests are like how Juju asks you before everyone packs up from the Refugee Camp? Or will I face the scenario where say, an NPC gets killed by the Mechon before I can complete their quest or something like that?

Thanks in advance, and I hope everyone is enjoying the game as much as I am right now! It certainly seems—at this point in the game more than ever—that there is a load of content to explore so I'm sure I will be playing for a long time still.

[MetatronM]

On the note of quests, I question why some of them have you arbitrarily return to the person who gave you the assignment whereas others just let you be. There doesn't seem to be any reason for why this is so (unless I am missing something) in most cases unless the person gives you another quest immediately afterwords; is the game trying to tell me that there is something in the NPC's area I should be checking out (like new quests) or something? That's part of the quest system I haven't quite figured out.

It's world building. Those NPCs have things to tell you about themselves, about other people, about the world. It's an additional layer to the story, not any real critical plot but rather color that fills in the world around you. There are personal stories that are woven across the entire game world that exist solely within the context of those quests. Those quests where you have to go back to the quest givers also give your party affinity boosts, which quests that complete themselves in the field do not.

Also, quests only expire at major events. They don't all have such explicit warning like that first batch, but there are only a couple such moments, and they're all fairly huge events, so even though the game doesn't say "hey, are you sure you want to do this?" (though it does that for the final cutoff), the quest expiration points are pretty clear.

[Exeunt]

It's world building. Those NPCs have things to tell you about themselves, about other people, about the world. It's an additional layer to the story, not any real critical plot but rather color that fills in the world around you. There are personal stories that are woven across the entire game world that exist solely within the context of those quests. Those quests where you have to go back to the quest givers also give your party affinity boosts, which quests that complete themselves in the field do not. Also, quests only expire at major events. They don't all have such explicit warning like that first batch, but there are only a couple such moments, and they're all fairly huge events, so even though the game doesn't say "hey, are you sure you want to do this?" (though it does that for the final cutoff), the quest expiration points are pretty clear.

Ah, that makes sense now. In retrospect, the quests that don't require you to return to the NPC are more like "collect these items so I can make x" as opposed to more personal stories from named characters. That definitely helps put them into perspective; the game definitely has a lot of things to pull you into its world such as the affinity chart and the little details you get when a quest is completed. Speaking of affinity, I never considered the affinity boost as a part of the "return" quests—thanks for the perspective in both areas. I knew there had to be a reason why those quests were different but it just didn't occur to me until then.

And thanks also for your quests answer. I'm glad the expiration points are pretty clear, as that means I can be a little more easygoing in how I approach them. I'm also pleased this means I can begin rebuilding Colony 6, as that looks like an interesting diversion to keep coming back to now that I know that shouldn't have any unforeseen consequences.

[chaosblade]

Actually the only quests that expire without warning are Sword Valley/Gallahad Fortress.

All the others have some sort of warning, including the Alcamoth timed quests. The warning does come a little before that though.

[jwj442]

I'm at level 19-20 now and am looking for Colony 6 after Juju's capture. A few questions:

1. It seems like the game wants me to find the next location on my own after I go through the road; is that correct?
2. Do I need to worry about becoming overleveled? I'm already a few levels ahead of the enemies I meet. I've done some quests, but I haven't gone out of my way for that many. The possibility of becoming too powerful and steamrolling everything is keeping me from exploring as much as I would otherwise.
3. I have a bit of a hard time selecting the right enemy in combat. When I'm fighting a bunch of bad guys, it can be confusing targeting the right one - I'm playing Reyn right now and when someone uses break and I want to topple or I need to draw aggro away from a party member I often have trouble getting the right enemy targeted before it's too late. Are there any tricks for this or do I just have to get used to it?
4. How much of a difference do gems actually make? I feel like I spend a lot of time rearranging them and I'm not sure how much benefit it really gives me.
5. Should I bother trying to fight monsters above my level? I'm guessing the level 70s are imposible at this point, but would it be possible for me to tackle the 30s?
6. Is there any way to change the camera with the nunchuck? Choosing attacks while moving is nice but no camera is kind of a dealbreaker.
7. Are the "materials" vendor trash or should I actually keep some of them?

[Nub]

I just got Melia in my party.

A couple of questions

1. What are some good team combinations that include her?

2. What is a good way to use her over all?

[burgerdog]

I just got Melia in my party. A couple of questions 1. What are some good team combinations that include her? 2. What is a good way to use her over all?

I like Melia, Riki, Dunban and Melia, Shulk, Dunban set ups.

You can use this rotation:
Summom Wind, Summom Bolt, Copy Element, Spear Break, Starlight Kick, Release Bolt x2, Summom Flare, Release Flare, Release Wind. I think this is the general rotation and also what the gaf Melia guide suggests.

[Bisnic]

For Reyn's 4th skill tree, they say i need to migrate some guys to Colony 6, but when i talk to, say for example Hoko, he just talks and nothing else. My affinity is at 4 stars with Frontier Village and storywise im at the beginning of Agniratha. Do i need more stars? More quests to be done? Advance further in the story?