Chapter 4

>Nia gets cucked
CRAWLING IN MY SKIN

That's pretty broad, Nia has a lot of lines.

I thought chapter 4 was funny. I liked it.

Me too. I wasn't a fan of the thief detour but the stuff with Rosa was so silly I loved it and it was nice not to take things as seriously.

It's basically a Tales plot until chapter 10 happens. Some shallow villains are introduced in the first hour in the game or so, then you're basically sidetracked for 30-ish hours before anything relevant happens. Then another 20 until Pyra gets taken on Tantal. Then another 10 until the Klaus plot twist near the very end of the game. None of the Titan arcs are particularly compelling and Torna are a boring villain faction.

That's a pretty incorrect boiling down of he story. The villains aren't shallow and almost nothing in the story is irrelevant. Acting like nothing happen in between te parts you mention is dishonest.

What was the explanation for why blades weren't evolving into titans anymore?

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IIRC it was because Amalthus took the trinity cores from the World Tree

>Torna are boring villains
I disagree. Jin/Malos/Amalthus are all good villains.

It was because of Amalthus's core crystal cleansing. He was taking the data that the crystals were accumulating, so every crystal he got his hands on had all its progress towards becoming a titan reset.

This is also likely why Rare Blades are so hard to come by. Amalthus keeps resetting them back to Commons and Rares only come out of the few Core Crystals that've somehow slipped by him and built up data. Gacha Hell is actually HIS fault.

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>contextualized gacha mechanics

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>The villains aren't shallow and almost nothing in the story is irrelevant.
The Gormott, Uraya, and Mor Ardain arcs were all humongous wastes of time. What are you talking about?

>I disagree. Jin/Malos/Amalthus are all good villains.
Hardly. Malos and Amalthus are a bunch of boring nihilistic edgelords and Jin is just a katana wielding dope with a dead waifu.

ch 4 is the hurdle you have to cross for the game to get way better

But some commons are even better than some rares i.e. Orb Master so I wonder just how godly those blades could have become.

>not loving the shit out of Chapter 4
It's the obligatory /m/ fanservice segment that's one of the main highlights of any Xeno game desu
literally everything in that chapter is a throwback or reference to old super robot anime and toku shows
youtube.com/watch?v=2QAL6TYtWvY

Wonder if I will like the Blade games. Was a fan of the old Xenos.

Maybe. They're great games, but their stories aren't nearly as good, IMO.

Xenoblade 1 is great but it's very removed from what made old Xeno great, and probably the simplest of the story-heavy Xeno games.
Xenoblade X is kind of like Xenosaga(ish?) except if you remove 90% of the story
Xenoblade 2 is a watered down and more lighthearted mishmash of Xenogears and Xenosaga's core themes and plot points, but it's the most complicated and in-depth Xenoblade narratively.

Its a long as fuck movie game with mediocre gameplay just like all of the xeno games so you might like it. I didnt much care for the movie though since the number of giant robots was minimal

>simplest of the story-heavy Xeno games.
They're all story heavy except for X

Good, it was the best part of a terrible game, but everything before that is too early to consider dropping considering it's a jrpg

Blade 1 and 2 are nowhere near as dense on story as Gears and Saga were.

>first trailer
aaaaaand dropped

Saga is the most story-dense of any Xeno by miles, and Xenoblade 1's the least dense, but I'm pretty sure that Xenoblade 2 (including Torna and the information bundled with Siren's figure) is denser than Xenogears (including Perfect Works).

Xenogears is undeniably the superior story though.

I mean I kind of agree with this but I think in general XB1's xeno themes are underappreciated. Like, a lot of people think XB2 is completely standalone but I honestly view it as a thematic extension of XB1

XB1 has Xeno themes definitely, the entire plot revolves around them.
It's just not as heavy as Gears, Saga or Blade 2, and arguably even Blade X.
Even though Blade X is the least story heavy of them all, I felt like the Xeno themes poured through more than Blade 1. In Blade 1 it was mostly names referencing to Gnostic themes that made it feel Xeno and not much else. This isn't bashing Xenoblade 1 though.

Adding to this, Xenoblade 1's still a great game but it was first conceptualized when Monolith didn't feel good about the future of Xeno after how much of a failure Xenosaga was, so they took a massive tonal shift to a simple, but well executed and amazingly presented story over a complex story that was all over the place quality-wise.

>people seriously pretending 2 has a plot any better than a B-grade panty quest game

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Damn you made me interested in b-grade panty quest games now.

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Finch's name is... um...

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It starts out lighthearted but gets pretty serious by the end. Chapter 6 with Jin going full "I CAN CONTROL ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND MOVE AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT" is kind of the even horizon where it switches over to more than just a fun mindless romp.

Chapter 10 is legit grand. The Architect cutscene is like 30 minutes long but held my attention the entire time.

when poppi said "poppi no lose" several hundred mid 30s white hispanic men cried

Poppi almost shook my faith in Emeralda for best Xeno girl
Almost

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Malos is weird because his appearance doesn't match the words that come out of his mouth. He's out to destroy everything but he looks like he'd be idiot jock type character.

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Yeah, chapter 4 is kind of boring, but the story picks up afterwards

When the E3 trailer was revealed I called that he'd be the henchman character who was killed halfway through the story, kind of like Metal Face.
I was completely wrong. I was surprised when he was actually the main bad guy.

Malos doesn't even want to destroy everything and even shows regret for it, but it's his nature after Amalthus's hatred imprinted on him.

Amalthus is the true main villain
Malos is the tragic weapon obeying his nature

>I was completely wrong. I was surprised when he was actually the main bad guy.
It's crazy. I like him as a character but I guess he's too handsome for the role they gave him?

Everything was Amalthus' fault including me never rolling Kos-Mos.

>Malos doesn't even want to destroy everything and even shows regret for it
He does want to destroy it, at least partially. Amalthus definitely screwed him over, but Malos isn't without his own motivations. That's the whole point of Klaus's answer to his question about whether it was his choice.

Malos instinctively felt like he wanted to destroy the world because of Amalthus, he originally didn't want to destroy the world.
Him hanging out with Torna and experiencing their suffering and sense of camaraderie drove him to want to destroy the world, but he still shows signs of hesitation and regret.
Malos's desire to destroy the world is as instinctual to him as breathing is to us.

It's vague, but I think Malos was going to destroy the world if he got the opportunity to, but I think his motives were more along the lines of "What am I and why do I want to destroy the world?" and that destroying the world would help him find his answer.

Lasted longer than me. That game was a hard pass, complete disservice to 1 and X

The only bad thing about Torna is that it makes Amalthus look straight-up evil while the main game just implied he was just a mindbroken priest driven by despair and does evil things because he misinterpreted the Architect. In the main game he's enabling Malos to destroy the world but while that's happening, he's still trying to end war and provide hospice to people, even if he does perform sadistic experiments on children and blades. In Torna he's just a scheming asshole

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>tried some legendary cores with max boosters trying to get her
>nothing
>try a rare core straight after with no boosters
>get her

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felt like he HAD*, not wanted*

I'm autistic. I've watched Joseph Anderson's entire playthrough of Xenoblade 2. I can safely say the guy is an over-emotional moron who throws a fit at the smallest things, and blows them out of proportion without giving it a second thought, cheering on his chat to do the same.

>Klaus' scene
>Klaus, dismayed that humanity has repeated his time's mistakes, falls into a nihilistic mindset, declares it's 'fate' that mankind end up like this
>Joseph spergs out at the word 'fate', outright says "The story has no meaning anymore, I'm done" then obviously stops paying attention to the game to click on something else

I feel like these are the majority of people who hate XC2. They go into the game with the "I already hate this game, so let's justify it" mindset and then pick away at the smallest shit to justify their stance. Obviously not all of XC2's critics are like that, there's plenty of flaws with the game, but I truly believe the majority of them are absolutely brainless.

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Happened to me with Adenine. I said might as well max my Blade count before I try again with legendaries and got her. Was my last Blade, too.

Why the hell did Mikhail and Jin join forces with the Aegis that was responsible for pretty much all their suffering?

If I remember right there's a pity system.

If user is trying to awaken a Blade with legendaries at max odds, they're way past the pity system. That's only for your first three Blades.

The pity system is only for one of 5 sets with 3 blades each, which ensures you aren’t 20 hours into the game with no rares.

Glad I'm not the only person who was bothered by how they handled him in Torna. It felt really lazy.

In Torna he's a saturday morning cartoon villain
In XB2 he's the best Xeno villain since Albedo

The town made him stupid.

I felt like Torna was going to be big until they realized they only had a skeleton crew and a small budget, so they just said "fuck it we'll do our best" and kind of half-assed everything. Where was Temperantia? Where was the 'war'?

Actually 'half-assed' was the wrong word. More like "Did their best with what the had".

People who don't at least vaguely sympathize with Klaus have literally never tried to create anything meaningful in their entire lives. If they had, they'd realize that something ALWAYS manages to get fucked up, no matter how hard you try or how "right" you are. Real maturity is accepting this fact, and then moving on from there. Those fucks just want to outright deny it.

I've done this twice, and I don't think I'll be doing it a third time.

The middle third of the game is just poor man's Xenogears. It's nothing new or special.

What was the most annoying Affinity Chart to complete for you? You did complete all of the Rare Blades's charts, didn't you?

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None of them even come close to Ursula's.

Ursula. Not-Ursula answer: Agate. I haven't completed Zenobia's because she's the only blade I'm missing.

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I dunno, it took a long time but it was just something you could do on the side. Zenobia's chart has you actively playing a gigantic five-hour sidequest.

Zenobia's isn't bad if you follow a guide to tell you where the enemies are but I admit I didn't get her until post game.

for me, it's poppibuster. finding all those heart to hearts again in NG+ was irritating
honorable mention goes to t-elos's jumping node

>Zenobia's chart has you actively playing a gigantic five-hour sidequest.
I looked up those sealstones or whatever because I broke all 4 and nothing happened only to realize I'd inadvertently done most of her chart without her. I might just swallow my autism and start NG+ without her.

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>working hard on poppibuster when you realize you can't finish his chart until NG+

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But you can't break them unless you've started the quest? Can you?

You can. I broke the ones in Gormott and Leftheria before I even got Zenobia.

Well, you will have Zenobia, just with an empty Affinity Chart if that's how it works.

You can. Like I said I cracked all 4 without her (I thought it was tied to a superboss!).

That's good to hear, I didn't notice them until I had started her quest but it makes sense that the prompt would only show up once you're supposed to know what to do with them.

>Based Mor Ardain
>Poppi gets an upgrade
>Factory's a great level
>Morag joins the team
>Finally able to equip everyone with three Blades
>Around the time you should be able to afford art canceling
Fuck off, faggot.

Indol's cleansing ritual erases the data accumulated by the Blades so it can't be sent to the Aegises and returned with evolutionary code.

Thankfully now you don't have to choose.

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The stones reset in NG+ and the Torna Blades being added to the gacha reduces your chance of finding her, I'd suggest finding her now if ever.

any blade that has cooking nodes
even with field skills collecting materials is such a fucking tedious bore, it doesn't help that you can't cook things in bulk either

>ignoring the slog of a first half that involves Roc's pointless sidequest
>the factory drops frames like a motherfucker
>Poppi upgrade and Morag happen in the last quarter of the chapter
>introduction to mandatory merc missions
>literally the only thing from chapter 4 that ends up mattering is artifical blades which are practically a footnote in the story as a whole
yeah nah fuck off cunt

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you forgot all the fucking enemies that love to aggro you through the walls in the factory
fucking dogshit chapter

bye

>Where was Temperantia?
This is what drove me bonkers because of the "Aegishammer" site we see in the main game. Are we just supposed to accept that it was from one of the pot shots Mythra took at Malos?

Malos helped Jin out at his lowest point, and he probably wasn't too happy with humanity even before then, anyways, so Malos's point of view would've made a lot more sense to him by then.
And Mikhail most likely just wanted to help out Jin, not Malos. It's weird that they never showed how he joined Torna, though.

Sometime after Spessia they probably got some hints that Amalthus was a greater threat (Jin knowing Indol attacked and killed Lora, Mikhal getting turned into a blade eater and then later surviving the culling) and then probably also learned more about the Aegis' nature (due to their experience with Mythra) and how they are basically neutral until they resonate.

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>I was completely wrong. I was surprised when he was actually the main bad guy.
Even though he's the final boss, Malos doesn't really feel like the main villain to me. It seems like the plot focuses much more on Jin.

Also Poppy in general being best girl

>character and world set up bad
>action scene with carboard cut outs good

What makes a good villain for you?

>and then probably also learned more about the Aegis' nature (due to their experience with Mythra) and how they are basically neutral until they resonate.
I don't know about that. Malos seems like he's only just starting to think about how much of his "hunger" is actually his own in chapter 5, if Jin or Mikhail had any inklings of how much Amalthus had influenced him I'd think it would've come up a lot earlier.

>that crotch vein

Now if only Poppi could have an exposed tummy like Emeralda

Torna was good, but man it had some wasted potential. I think if they didn't aim to push it out as soon as possible, they could have added a lot more to the game. We desperately needed another Titan, perhaps Mor Ardain before it became a wasteland and started decaying since Niall and the Ardanian military was involved in the war. Gormott really sucked truthfully, and I wish Zenobia got a boss fight or side quest since its hinted that she may have fought Mythra.

The time has come and so have I..

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I think all of XB2's major villains are good, I just wouldn't call Malos the sole 'main' villain.

As soon as I saw Lila's design I immediately recognized chapter 4 as the filler episode where they teach you to use Mythra.

Malos and Jin are the only real "villains" that are worth a damn honestly. Amalthus is a gay elf who is obsessed with being the Architect's chosen one on top of having mommy issues, and Bana was an absolute fucking meme. I really wish this game took itself more seriously.

I liked Akhos a lot, his boss fights where he's just an asshole that wants to CC you all the time were pretty memorable.

Legendary Philosopher God Tier
>Malos

Warped by Circumstances Tier
>Jin
>Amalthus

Horseshoe Theory Also Applies to Suffering Tier
>Mikhail

POWER GAP

Love to Hate Tier
>Akhos

We need a generic bad guy right now Tier
>Any generic Driver and Blade enemy

POWER GAP

Angry Shit Tier
>Patroka

I couldn't really take Akhos seriously for some reason. His design just didn't strike him as threatening. Malos did most of the work when they teamed up on Vandham. I can't remember his other battle, but I'm pretty sure it involved Jin and he did most of the ass kicking. That doesn't mean I hate Akhos mind you. His design is nice, he's just not really anyone important except for another Torna lackey. The only people in Torna who truthfully mattered were Malos, Jin, and Mikhail.

So, do you think they'll remaster XC1, XC2, and Torna years from now?

>Complaining about based Zenobia’s chart
>When her chart is just killing UM’s and the obligatory Blade sidequest
>TFW she’s worth all the grinding
Not kidding, she’s the first Rare Blade I got a full affinity chart with, while the rest slowly but surely followed suit.

While the sidequest was annoying (poison water), it was worth it seeing this cutie be fully powered and a mainstay on my team.

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Maybe, but not for a long time.

I feel like the art direction of XC2 and Torna will preserve them well enough, but XC1 could get a facelift.
I wasn't complaining, I don't have her! I rolled KOS-MOS before her!

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Where is this said ingame?

I forget but it's revealed sometime late in the game that he was fiddling with cores. On top of that, in Torna its even shown that he was researching cores before he usurped the Praetor

>simpsonsposter is retarded
wow what a shock

I don't think it's ever directly said, you basically have to piece it together from Amalthus and Klaus's dialogue.
>If the Architect did send Blades down to this world... it was for my sake.
>To find and raise cores containing more powerful, wondrous, unparalleled data...That is why I created the cleansing procedure.
>Behold the culmination of my work!
and
>The Core Crystals at the heart of each Blade are tasked with relaying all kinds of information to Logos and Pneuma...
>About the selection pressures of the outside world, and the biological status of their bonded human, but also the experiences and emotions they share.
>As the data continually accrues...new evolutionary code is sent back to the Core Crystals, and this code is used to create new, further evolved Blades.
>These Blades too become Titans, in time, and create new generations of lifeforms... This was the new circle of life I had created.

The problem with maxing out Zenobia's Chart mostly comes from the fact that the map is layered awkwardly and there's no clear incentive to where the monsters your supposed to be hunting is at. So it's more so tedious than anything, but I do like her chart more so than others.

Zeke is based and redpilled. Glad I dropped Rex for him. I bet Rex is a communist.

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Not him, but I thought it was heavily implied in Klaus' explanation near the end.
Titans create Core Crystals
Core Crystals turn into Blades when something resonates with them
Blades revert to Core Crystals upon their Driver's death
Blades continually become more advanced over many resonations over many years as they accumulate data from their various Drivers and become Rare Blades (Wulfric is the example in the cutscene)
After hitting a certain threshold, Rare Blades return to the womb of the Titan that created them (or perhaps even another Titan) to incubate and evolve into Titans themselves
Titans assist humans by nature because they're so attuned to humans from their Blade lives
Amalthus "cleanses" Core Crystals to make them easier to resonate with, which is why so many soldiers have Common Blades. By preventing them from accumulating data, they never become Titans and humanity slowly loses its land, forcing them into conflict over the remaining land.
Rare Blades tend to retain small instinctual memories of their past lives, like Roc speaking like Vandham or Vess being drawn to her old home. These Core Crystals have not been cleansed.

The Blade leveling system is the most obtuse shit ever
>have to hunt down Furious Pedro to progress one rank in Affinity Chart

Yeah, same. I have everyone in the lead but Rex until he becomes a Master Driver.

>Xenogears is undeniably the superior story though.
Eva rip off

Or you could google it and save yourself some stress. You know, what a anyone trying to save as much time as possible would do.

And XC2 is a Gears ripoff, what difference does it make? It was still a good story, Takahashi was simply too ambitious about it and as a result it collapsed. That goes for anything pre Xenoblade though sadly. Saga had so much potential.

Does Amalthus cleansing reverts legendary/rare cores back to commons?
Brigid and Praxis forgets about her past too and the former needs a journal

Exactly the progression is so obscure no sane player can find them normally without needing an external guide

Memory loss between resonations is part of the normal process, but they still maintain fragments and become more advanced over time. Amalthus does hard resets back to 0, so Rares probably do revert back into Commons after the cleansing.

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Am i intended to do challenge mode shit on NG+ or just grind my blades in NG? Filling these charts is killing me.

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>Filling these charts is killing me.
That's what Ursula's shitty quests are actually good for.

It gets better

Based

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>he bought shitch
>he bought xenotrash

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ngl i'll play it when yuzu is usable