I've had this game haunting my backlog for almost a year now. Later this summer, I swear...

The imminent Smash reveal of Shulk is persuading me to shell out for a copy on eBay.

Guys, am I heading towards a point of no return where some quests won't be available anymore to me? Melia is out of the party for now and I've been doing story quests until I get her back, so as to have her around for side quests. But I won't do that if it means screwing myself out of side quests.

I've gone through the trial thing, Mechons and the Nemesis are about to assault the High Entia place. The King hasn't yet let me go to Prison Island.

@Guillaume

Nope, you've got plenty of time.

@MilotheMayor

Get it! It's awesome!

Some bunnies beat me up on a bridge. I decided to explore the swamp and deal with dem wabbits later.

I wonder how long a second play through of the game would take? Isn't there new game +?

@PogueSquadron Yeah there is, if you saved your game after you beat it. Your levels carry over, as well as some items of your choosing, and a few other odds and ends. A run through the story at lvl 99 and skipping all the side stuff would probably not take long.

I don't mind that there are bikinis or sexy outfits in this game for the female characters. But when I equip a character with heavy armor I'd like to see her looking badass in armor. Instead they thought it was a good idea to make armor that completely leaves the chest open. It's really hard finding clothing for Sharla that doesn't make her look ridiculous.

So I'm about 15 hours into this game. I just had Dunban join the party.

Questions:

1. What exactly do Break, Topple, and Daze do? The latter two seem to stun the enemy for a couple turns, and I think I read it ups the damage of critical hits? Anything more than that? Also, I think Xord was invulnerable until he got Dazed, so I assume that is a key to boss battles going forward.

2. Is it important to try out characters other than Shulk? I tried playing as Reyn for a bit but did a pretty poor job of drawing aggro away from Shulk, which seems to be Reyn's prime directive.

3. Anyone here play this game on the Dolphin emulator? (I loaned the disc to a friend, assumed he would have finished by the time I got around to it). It looks great in HD, but it has a lot of stuttering no matter what settings I use, especially when battles or cutscenes get busy and when I first enter a new area. Anybody know any fixes for that?

@nate38
1. Yeah, you've pretty much got it. Break essentially only opens the enemy up for topple and daze, which stun the enemy and increase the time of the stun, respectively. Certain enemies (like Mechon) can't be harmed (or can't be harmed easily) without exposing their weak spots through toppling, and a toppled/dazed enemy will be easier to inflict damage on since they can't dodge and your criticals become more common and more effective.

2. Not very important, but it can be a lot of fun. All of the characters will feel a bit different from each other due to their respective strengths and weaknesses, so don't let your time as Reyn put you off the idea altogether.

@nate38


1. topple makes enemies fall over and take more damage. they can be dazed /knocked out afterwords to prolong the effect. status effects stack in xb so if the are seeing stars you have time to make them fall over again even if they lie on the ground.


2. try out different combos to see what you like. some combos are easier to pull of than others but none is worthless per se

@r_hjort @Jotthah I see, thanks. I was wondering if I was missing something with Break / Topple / Daze mostly because they barely last a second when I pull it off. Shulk's special that causes Daze takes like a full second once you select it, and then they only seem to stay down for two seconds at most, sometimes getting right back up immediately. I guess it upgrades when you level up the ability, though.

@nate38 I've never really had much luck emulating games on Wii. I got some things kind of working but never really all that reliable. I couldn't personally recommend it. In a couple years I bet it'll be awesome though.

(I got burned really bad when I got to a game breaking glitch in FFX. I just never had luck emulating from PS2/GameCube and on. I think I got Luigi's Mansion working well but I think it gave my computer a workout. I played through all of FFIX on a PS1 emulator though using the actual game discs. Glad I did. Polygons jiggled a bit but they looked super smooth)

@nate38
Yeah, there are ways for you to enhance the duration of the individual effects, and like @Jotthah says, there are ways for you to keep an enemy dazed for a long time by stacking them.

Well, I'm closing in on 30 hours played and just did the High Entia Tomb dungeon trial thingy. How far am I through the story?

Also, Shulk's attacks only do 1hp damage to the High Entia enemies I've fought (the quintet that ambushes you in your guest quarters, the boss that summons the telethia in the Tomb). Is there a reason for this? Do they have some kind of aura I have to Purge? I thought I tried that but maybe I didn't...


Anyway, now that I've put some serious time into the game...I like it. It's not quite in my JRPG elite, but I can see why others are enamored with it. And for those that do love it, there's a hell of a lot to squeeze out of it. The scale, in particular, is really impressive for a Wii game, and that adds a lot to the very pretty environments (which are extra nice in HD, on Dolphin).

@nate38
Since I played Xenoblade for ages and spliced in a lot of random quests and monster battles in between story quests I can't really say how far you are, but as for the battles I think you should be using Shulk as more of a support character than a damage dealer, getting rid of auras and stuff.

There is a reason for the 1HP damage limit to the Monado, but I don't know if that's something you should be aware of at this point or not. It's been too long since I played Xenoblade.

@nate38
They might just be resistant to certain types of damage. I can't remember too well as it was like a year ago I played that part.

@nate38

You're not that far. Maybe a third of the way through?

I (finally) started this last night and sunk in close to three hours of playtime. I ended up doing sidequests early because, well, it's actually a good sidequest system. I dig so far. Now Shulk and Reyn have to go get some fuel cells...I'll probably play some more tonight.

I do appreciate that you can save anywhere. That's huge.