Xenoblade Chronicles X

[CrimsonCavalier]

I doubt that, Sawano seems to have a penchant for incorporating cheesy pop-like lyrics into his songs. "How long must I wait for you?" is a strange inquiry to have in the Noctilum day theme, yet quite fitting.

Plus the "hey hey hey" chanting is used in the background of both songs, among other similarities. I'm almost certain their both parodying another song.

I'd like to think the music is so bad because it's a parody, but I doubt it.

It's weird to have a game with some of my favorite and most loathed music at the same time. For example, the Sylvalum night theme is absolutely wonderful. But everything with words in it is dreadful.

I'm not familiar with Sawano's music, so I can't say "I hate this composer," but I'm not the biggest fan of some the tracks in this game.

 

[Night Owl]

So far the only song I've really hated in the game is the NLA night music.
100+ hours in and it isn't even growing on me like some of the other songs.
My favorite song is probably the one that plays when you are facing tyrants. It makes for really epic battle music.

Has anyone completed the red lobster side quest? I've got 47 of the 99 and can't seem to find any more. I'm thinking I need to go farther in the story as chapter 5 brought a few with the ma-non ship.

 

[Lozjam]

For example, this part: View attachment 37262

These enemies are going to drop down on me. I can see them, but I can't target them.

Further ahead:

View attachment 37263

As you can see, there is nothing on the ceiling here. But, the enemies will drop from the ceiling, regardless, as soon as I get close to that treasure.

I know this, because I tried it before, when I was lower level. The enemies spawned right there, killed one of my party members, and, as I ran, I woke up the other enemies that I showed in the other screen shot. They chased me almost to the entrance of the cave.

This sort of thing happens all of the time. And it isn't fun.

I love how you continue to complain how the game is "gating" you while @the8thark proves to you that this is exactly not the case.
Furthermore, what you are stating, is exactly what Xenoblade Chronicles did, with creatures such as the immovable Gonzalez, and other even regular monsters. Yet you still call the original one of the best games you ever played.

 

[CrimsonCavalier]

I love how you continue to complain how the game is "gating" you while @the8thark proves to you that this is exactly not the case.
Furthermore, what you are stating, is exactly what Xenoblade Chronicles did, with creatures such as the immovable Gonzalez, and other even regular monsters. Yet you still call the original one of the best games you ever played.

I guess you don't have eyes, since you can't see that I'm literally showing you with pictures that you're wrong.

I remember you not being such an annoying person in the past. What happened? It seems like ever since I've been criticising this game with valid points, you've gotten your feathers ruffled.

Yes, Xenoblade had areas that were blocked off by enemies, but it was not the same as in this game. But let's look at Immovable Gonzales, since that's the one you decided to bring up. What was he guarding, really? Nothing. He is guarding not a damn thing. The only thing he's really guarding is the most direct route to get to the top of Spiral Valley. But the top is accessible via Windy Cave.

Is he a must-kill enemy? Does he have to be killed in any way, shape, or form? No. You can avoid him entirely and you don't miss anything by not killing him. He isn't guarding a probe location, a treasure, or a collectible. There is nothing about him that really prevents you from the playing the game at all. The only reason you would need to beat him is to 100% the game.

Now, let's take a look at the scene I described with screen shots above. Differently from Gonzales, the wood scirpo that falls from the ceiling right before you reach that treasure is not visible. Second, it is guarding something you need to complete the game. No, it isn't necessary to clear each and every single segment of the map to beat the game, but if you're trying to get as many probes and as much money as you can, yes, the treasures are important.

Third, Gonzales and this section are entirely different because Gonzales doesn't sneak up on you. You don't walk up to Gonzales and not see him. He doesn't spawn in front of you without you realizing it. What happened to me the first time I did that cave was that I very carefully walked past the scirpos hanging from the ceiling—the visible ones—and got to the treasure only for an enemy a good 10 levels higher than me to suddenly spawn on top of me. That scenario is not only completely different from Gonzales, it practically never happens in Xenoblade.

The only notable exceptions are Clifftop Bayern (but that's a quest related surprise) and Eternal Palsadia (which, admittedly, is a bit of a scare!)

Contrast that with this game, in which enemies are constantly spawning in front of you, without warning; where enemies that are 10, 15 levels weaker than you still spot you and still aggro you and still make you flinch; where level 60 grexes that never sleep are guarding a land bridge, the only way to reach a different section of Primordia (you "can" jump your way around them, if you try hard enough, but it was clearly not the intended path the developers meant for you to take, so just because you "can" doesn't mean they aren't gate guarding); where, in Sylvalum, there is a high-level enemy curled up next to a probe location. How much more do you want? I can keep going. I can get on and take screen shots, videos, whatever you need.

It's really rare to encounter someone so enamored with a game like you are with this one.

 

[Lozjam]

It is not of having criticisms of the game, that I am trying to bash, it is of having the wrong criticisms of the game, to entirely miss of what the game is actually about. I have a lot of criticisms of Xenoblade X myself. But what you are saying, is like someone claiming it's stupid that Metal Gear Solid has stealth, or that Skyrim has a ton to do. Or that Dark Souls is too hard(in that itself, not the actual design flaws it has), or that Minecraft has no story. These are problems with the game itself, not the problems with the game.

This is an RPG. You progress in levels. You need to be smart as well. As @the8thark, and I can attest to, you can avoid nearly every single high leveled enemy as long as you are smart. You look up into the ceilings, to check for any enemies. You actually learn what enemies use for camouflage, and ask yourself, why are no enemies here?

You even say it yourself what Xenoblade X is doing. Do you need to run into all of these high leveled enemies? Absolutely not. You can get through almost any area in a multitude of ways. You can sneak around enemies, you can stay silent and walk slowly, you can try to find a different path, or you can just go to a different area. Is this concept so hard to grasp?

If you skip the entirety of Gaur plains just to go to the boss fight, you will be so under leveled. Is that your fault? Completely. Should you have actually done side quests, explored, and beaten enemies? Yes.

Thank you for calling me annoying by the way. That is a great way to prove your point. And just so you know, here are my criticisms of the game rather than criticisms of the entire concept of the game.

1. Navfrontier quests are really bad. Finding items through the frontier nav is nothing but luck, and unlike even item orbs, there is nothing you can do to really increase your chances of getting a specific item.
2. Day night cycle and the way you change it is obtrusive and stupid.
3. There is no true way to find a lot of party members, as they can be in different places a lot of the time.
4. Some of the quests are a little bit stilted in that they are stretched out to unnecessary lengths. One quest that comes to mind is the one with Jo, the coffee maker.
5. There is often times an imbalance among classes in the early game. Like, huge imbalance. For example, the first boss fight with one of the major antagonists of the game is completely easy in her second phase when you have an art that reflects energy based attacks.
6. Many enemies are a bit too comically easy to get passed.... For example, I can still touch a sight based monster, and they may not even notice me.
7. The ocean is far too big for what it is. This is rectified though with a Skell. I remembered when I was swimming to Sylvalum. I turned on auto run, made myself a sandwich, ate the sandwich, and still wasn't to the shore.
8. While the arms companies do make sense within the game in its quests. Their quests really do not differentiate themselves from any of the other monster hunting quests.
9. There are some characters that are underutilized in the plot, that would have totally made the plot make more sense.
10. There are a couple of obvious plot holes within the story, but I won't get into it because of spoilers.
11. The ending is a bit off. I get that they want to leave it open ended, but a couple of huge questions are unanswered.
12. Battle quotes aren't that memorable to compensate for the large cast. This leads to the friendly banter of characters to stale dialogue.
13. There are some unfitting themes of music for certain scenes.
14. The info dumps at the end of chapters could have been way better dispersed in the game.
15. The way to select body parts is very clunky
16. There is an input delay with soul voices and using arts.
17. Many things in NLA are underutilized. There should be more random shops. Food for buffs, furniture stores for your barracks, ect.
18. The treasure, and probe placement/opening where you have to repeatedly tap the a button is unnecessary.
19. The DLC affinity quests were very lackluster. It's a good thing they came on disk, else I would be horribly disappointed.
19. Collection quests with monster parts sometimes do not tell you what type of monster you want.
20. The basic missions don't have a good difficulty rating
21. At the end game.... The commando branch is so OP if you play a certain way. I'm not going to spoil how because that takes the fun out of it. But I was able to destroy super bosses in a single series of hits.
22. Wir Fliegan is not played enough
23. The lobster quest, enough said.
24. Why must Skells not be truly available before level 30? This is nonsense.
25. The Manon have some inconsistencies in character.

 

[Ronin]

This is an RPG. You progress in levels. You need to be smart as well. As @the8thark, and I can attest to, you can avoid nearly every single high leveled enemy as long as you are smart. You look up into the ceilings, to check for any enemies. You actually learn what enemies use for camouflage, and ask yourself, why are no enemies here?

There actually are enemies that drop out of nowhere, though. I've had it happen to me while walking through narrow chasms and into certain caves. There wasn't any indication of them hiding above me; a spider- or crab-like indigen would just fall into place and force me to run (happened a ton during the lower levels), but as you say, there are ways around them. X wouldn't be an openworld experience otherwise. Primordia is open-ended without exception; Oblivia has two pathways that lead to a wider area; Noctilum is a jungle with lots of trees and gulches (thus multiple pathways); Sylvalum is overladen with camouflage snares; and Cauldros has land bridges and lava pools. That's not even accounting for the various inlets and beaches around the coast of each region, which can be used as alternate routes to advance further inland.

The game pushes a trial and error method to have players reconsider what path they should be taking. If there's an overleveled enemy "gating" an opening or probe site, then they would either choose a different path or grind until you can at least outsprint the gatekeeper. It isn't really about hindering progress, but conditioning them to think like a Blade in order to survive like one. All of the tools are laid before them on the Gamepad; it's up to the player to utilize their gear to the fullest.

@CrimsonCavalier How far along are you? If you're having trouble with a particular area, then maybe we can help.

 

[the8thark]

1. Navfrontier quests are really bad. Finding items through the frontier nav is nothing but luck, and unlike even item orbs, there is nothing you can do to really increase your chances of getting a specific item.
2. Day night cycle and the way you change it is obtrusive and stupid.
3. There is no true way to find a lot of party members, as they can be in different places a lot of the time.
4. Some of the quests are a little bit stilted in that they are stretched out to unnecessary lengths. One quest that comes to mind is the one with Jo, the coffee maker.
5. There is often times an imbalance among classes in the early game. Like, huge imbalance. For example, the first boss fight with one of the major antagonists of the game is completely easy in her second phase when you have an art that reflects energy based attacks.
6. Many enemies are a bit too comically easy to get passed.... For example, I can still touch a sight based monster, and they may not even notice me.
7. The ocean is far too big for what it is. This is rectified though with a Skell. I remembered when I was swimming to Sylvalum. I turned on auto run, made myself a sandwich, ate the sandwich, and still wasn't to the shore.
8. While the arms companies do make sense within the game in its quests. Their quests really do not differentiate themselves from any of the other monster hunting quests.
9. There are some characters that are underutilized in the plot, that would have totally made the plot make more sense.
10. There are a couple of obvious plot holes within the story, but I won't get into it because of spoilers.
11. The ending is a bit off. I get that they want to leave it open ended, but a couple of huge questions are unanswered.
12. Battle quotes aren't that memorable to compensate for the large cast. This leads to the friendly banter of characters to stale dialogue.
13. There are some unfitting themes of music for certain scenes.
14. The info dumps at the end of chapters could have been way better dispersed in the game.
15. The way to select body parts is very clunky
16. There is an input delay with soul voices and using arts.
17. Many things in NLA are underutilized. There should be more random shops. Food for buffs, furniture stores for your barracks, ect.
18. The treasure, and probe placement/opening where you have to repeatedly tap the a button is unnecessary.
19. The DLC affinity quests were very lackluster. It's a good thing they came on disk, else I would be horribly disappointed.
19. Collection quests with monster parts sometimes do not tell you what type of monster you want.
20. The basic missions don't have a good difficulty rating
21. At the end game.... The commando branch is so OP if you play a certain way. I'm not going to spoil how because that takes the fun out of it. But I was able to destroy super bosses in a single series of hits.
22. Wir Fliegan is not played enough
23. The lobster quest, enough said.
24. Why must Skells not be truly available before level 30? This is nonsense.
25. The Manon have some inconsistencies in character.

My comments on this are as follows. But first thanks for saying all of this. Much appreciated.

1. I don't see the issue. Sure some of the rarer collectable fetch quests can take a while. But if you know what areas in each continent to farm them, it's not all that bad. This does require you have an external source (internet or guide book) to find out this information. For most of the fetch quests I already had the collectables. Never sell any of them, as they are always useful and the cash you get for them is small. Anyway you'll be getting cash from them once you hit 99x anyway.
2. The day/night cycle is fine. The issue is how you change it is a little weird when coming from the change it anywhere XC Wii. In saying that, the day/night thing is not used all that much like it is in XC Wii.
3. They were always parked in the same places if you want to recruit them. Finding their heart to hearts though. I usually wait till I have a ticked hexagon telling me that a heart to heart is there.
5. Possibly you're correct here but I didn't find it all that bad. The game is meant to take time to finish. Earn your rewards as opposed to instant gratification in say a Mario game.
6. You need to remember that it's sight as in what your eyes see. It's not 360 degree detection from the enemy. They will only detect you if they can see you, as in if you walk infront of them, for the sight based enemies. If you're quiet you can get really close to them if they are looking away. That is intended and just fine. It makes getting past over levelled enemies easier.
7. This is true but you don't have to swin to any continent if you don't want too. The Primordia to Sylvalum link has quite a few islands connecting the two continents. The swimming the ocean for the beach landing is only one way to reach each other continent. The other way is a land based way but you have to run through the previous continent to make it. You do not need a flying skell to make all of the land based enterances to each continent.
8. True. I agree with you here.
9. I agree.
10. True but very few games have perfect stories. XCX's story is above average (not perfect though) and it works fine by me. Even if it's all repeated from other games:

• A human planet getting destroyed as collateral damage in a war between two alien races - Starcraft 2
• Ugly aliens that have trouble breathing oxygen and only want to destroy all humans - Quake (the prone in XCX are the Trogg in Quake)
• Earth gets destroyed and the survivers have to make do with what they can - Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (sure in that there was only one survivor but the same premesis exists).

11. I think this is the new way to do endings. It's the same with modern movies. There is no more ending where the movie/game tells you everything in the ending. These days they give you an ending and either don't tell you everything, just expecting the viewer to know what has happened or leave it up to the viewer to interpret and make up their own decision as to what the ending is. This is not a flaw of XCX. I see it more as a trend in modern media.
12. They are fine. They just get stale cause there's not enough of it for the thousands of battles you will do. If it didn't happen all the time it'd be fresh everythiem it did happen. It's just overused because of what XCX is. I don't see it as an intended flaw, more as a quality of life oversight by the developers.
13. A very subjective point. Some people love the music, others hate it. I like some of it a lot. The rest I think is not the best. But overall the soundtrack is alright. I've heard way worse.
14. True this. But I see why the developers did this.
15. It is. Developer oversight here. The game really needed a better way to choose a monster body part to lock onto.
16. There is. But it's so slight that it has never bothered me at all. The only issue is some of the soul voive prompts are so fast (after acing a few of them), that my reaction time of noticing them to pressing the button is too slow. The reaction time needed is less than a second by this point.
17. I think the barracks is fine. The commercial district sucks though. Nothing to buy there.
18. True. But I think it's fun. I think it was done to give the player a few seconds before the box is opened. As in keeping up the game's theme of no ijstant gratification. Everything in the game is earned. Even if it's a few seconds effort.
19. Same as point 1. This requires an external source to get the information. The developers should have told you what you need to kill. But it's not too bad I guess.
20. They should have just been level based. But I do think the developer wanted a little mystery in the difficulty of them. So you only knew how hard they are relative to each other and not absolutely how hard they are till you do them.
21. Every game has OP classes or ways of playing the game. This game is no different.
22. True
23. This is a Nintendo thing. They always like their grandmaster or long ass fetch quest in their games. This quest is that for XCX.
24. To make you really feel like you have earnt them. Also before level 30 you do not really need them.
25. True they do.

*********************************

Has anyone completed the red lobster side quest? I've got 47 of the 99 and can't seem to find any more. I'm thinking I need to go farther in the story as chapter 5 brought a few with the ma-non ship.

You have missed 3 of them. I have gotten every single one you can get without the ship in act 4. You need the ship to get all 50. I say 50 because once you nab 50 of them, then the other 48 appear. Once you have found 50 + 48 for 98, then the 99th one becomes available.
For the first 50, you do not need a flying skell to get them, but a few of them really required some tricky jumping to get. One in particular required me to get ontop of the massive NLA side walls to jump onto an otherwise inaccessable roof of a building to get. Also a few of them are under NLA as well around all the pipes and water. The place you land off when you fall off NLA basically.

*********************************

I guess you don't have eyes, since you can't see that I'm literally showing you with pictures that you're wrong.

The pictures you showed me do not contradict what I said. I agree with you. This does happen somewhat. Most of the time you can sneak around the trigger point for the enemy to get the yellow box. But there is a few times you just have to come back at a higher level as they do not move far away enough from the yellow box. These instances are not common but they do exist as you say.

where level 60 grexes that never sleep are guarding a land bridge, the only way to reach a different section of Primordia (you "can" jump your way around them, if you try hard enough, but it was clearly not the intended path the developers meant for you to take, so just because you "can" doesn't mean they aren't gate guarding)

I think this is intended by the developers as there is so many areas in Primordia and Oblivia you can access via clever mountain climbing. This is the no instant gratification theme of the game appearing again. Using your example you have two options. Leveling up (or busting out your skell) to kill the enemy, or using tricky jumps to bypass it. Usually you only have to bypass it once as you'll get the fast travel point after it.

where, in Sylvalum, there is a high-level enemy curled up next to a probe location.

In Sylvalum all bar two of the FN locations can have a probe put there at a low level. I did it at level 25 to level 30. Of the last two, one is acessable but not useable yet as it requires Mechanical Lv5 which you only get much later. The other I never saw. But that area I could not get into, I suspect it's an area you need a flying skell to access as it's all surrounded by very high walls. Sure there are areas where you can not kill anything but you can get past the enemies easily enough.
You can access a probe location in combat. You just have to cancel out of the arts selection so it's no longer on screen and then access the yellow box or FN site. You will fail and have to start again if you take any damage though. This includes environmental damage. This is especially in Cauldros and the meteor showers. Makes you press that A button really fast.

XC Wii gates you heavily though but that's the whole point. It's a scripted story and gating you so you prrogress through it's story in a linear fashion is the point of XC Wii.
XCX on the other hand does gate you in 3 small ways only.

• You can't fully explore till Chapter 4 (not too far into the game to be honest)
• A few areas (not many) requite a flying skell.
• One area in Cauldros is blocked by a forcefield. Not sure if or when I'll get access to it.

That's it really.

*********************************

The game pushes a trial and error method to have players reconsider what path they should be taking.

True the game does. Now everytime I see a new cliff or mountain I ask myself, can I climb it. A lot of the time you can. It is trial and error as you'll never know if you can climb it till you try.

@CrimsonCavalier How far along are you? If you're having trouble with a particular area, then maybe we can help.

I agree totally here. We're all willing to help if you need it. I can probably tell you how to access any location in the game and if you can get there at a lower level or in a lower chapter of the story. Just ask and I'll tell you.


*********************************

I found a secret island in the game. It's not a landmark and it does not have a special name. But it's so far away from anything, I would not be surprised if some people did not find it. The yellow box there requires mechanical Lv.5 to access though so I don't know what's in it. Maybe someone can go there and open it and tell us. I found it by looking for alternate ways to finish the noctilum collectapedia before getting a skell and I just saw it in the distance and went to it.

Here is a screenshot of the island

Here is where the island is. If you were not searching for something in that corner of the map you'd never find it. From the bottom of Noctillum (one of the closest points you can access the ocean, this secret island is about 10 minutes of auto swim to get there.

Also you can see my exploration percentages for each area. This is in chapter 4 still. There is more hexagons I can complete still in chapter 4. I'll get to them eventually. But this is just a quick snapshot at what is possible early on in the story.

I am not sure if other such islands exist in the game. Later on I'll take a look.

 

[Lozjam]

My comments on this are as follows. But first thanks for saying all of this. Much appreciated.

1. I don't see the issue. Sure some of the rarer collectable fetch quests can take a while. But if you know what areas in each continent to farm them, it's not all that bad. This does require you have an external source (internet or guide book) to find out this information. For most of the fetch quests I already had the collectables. Never sell any of them, as they are always useful and the cash you get for them is small. Anyway you'll be getting cash from them once you hit 99x anyway.
2. The day/night cycle is fine. The issue is how you change it is a little weird when coming from the change it anywhere XC Wii. In saying that, the day/night thing is not used all that much like it is in XC Wii.
3. They were always parked in the same places if you want to recruit them. Finding their heart to hearts though. I usually wait till I have a ticked hexagon telling me that a heart to heart is there.
5. Possibly you're correct here but I didn't find it all that bad. The game is meant to take time to finish. Earn your rewards as opposed to instant gratification in say a Mario game.
6. You need to remember that it's sight as in what your eyes see. It's not 360 degree detection from the enemy. They will only detect you if they can see you, as in if you walk infront of them, for the sight based enemies. If you're quiet you can get really close to them if they are looking away. That is intended and just fine. It makes getting past over levelled enemies easier.
7. This is true but you don't have to swin to any continent if you don't want too. The Primordia to Sylvalum link has quite a few islands connecting the two continents. The swimming the ocean for the beach landing is only one way to reach each other continent. The other way is a land based way but you have to run through the previous continent to make it. You do not need a flying skell to make all of the land based enterances to each continent.
8. True. I agree with you here.
9. I agree.
10. True but very few games have perfect stories. XCX's story is above average (not perfect though) and it works fine by me. Even if it's all repeated from other games:

• A human planet getting destroyed as collateral damage in a war between two alien races - Starcraft 2
• Ugly aliens that have trouble breathing oxygen and only want to destroy all humans - Quake (the prone in XCX are the Trogg in Quake)
• Earth gets destroyed and the survivers have to make do with what they can - Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (sure in that there was only one survivor but the same premesis exists).

11. I think this is the new way to do endings. It's the same with modern movies. There is no more ending where the movie/game tells you everything in the ending. These days they give you an ending and either don't tell you everything, just expecting the viewer to know what has happened or leave it up to the viewer to interpret and make up their own decision as to what the ending is. This is not a flaw of XCX. I see it more as a trend in modern media.
12. They are fine. They just get stale cause there's not enough of it for the thousands of battles you will do. If it didn't happen all the time it'd be fresh everythiem it did happen. It's just overused because of what XCX is. I don't see it as an intended flaw, more as a quality of life oversight by the developers.
13. A very subjective point. Some people love the music, others hate it. I like some of it a lot. The rest I think is not the best. But overall the soundtrack is alright. I've heard way worse.
14. True this. But I see why the developers did this.
15. It is. Developer oversight here. The game really needed a better way to choose a monster body part to lock onto.
16. There is. But it's so slight that it has never bothered me at all. The only issue is some of the soul voive prompts are so fast (after acing a few of them), that my reaction time of noticing them to pressing the button is too slow. The reaction time needed is less than a second by this point.
17. I think the barracks is fine. The commercial district sucks though. Nothing to buy there.
18. True. But I think it's fun. I think it was done to give the player a few seconds before the box is opened. As in keeping up the game's theme of no ijstant gratification. Everything in the game is earned. Even if it's a few seconds effort.
19. Same as point 1. This requires an external source to get the information. The developers should have told you what you need to kill. But it's not too bad I guess.
20. They should have just been level based. But I do think the developer wanted a little mystery in the difficulty of them. So you only knew how hard they are relative to each other and not absolutely how hard they are till you do them.
21. Every game has OP classes or ways of playing the game. This game is no different.
22. True
23. This is a Nintendo thing. They always like their grandmaster or long ass fetch quest in their games. This quest is that for XCX.
24. To make you really feel like you have earnt them. Also before level 30 you do not really need them.
25. True they do.

*********************************



You have missed 3 of them. I have gotten every single one you can get without the ship in act 4. You need the ship to get all 50. I say 50 because once you nab 50 of them, then the other 48 appear. Once you have found 50 + 48 for 98, then the 99th one becomes available.
For the first 50, you do not need a flying skell to get them, but a few of them really required some tricky jumping to get. One in particular required me to get ontop of the massive NLA side walls to jump onto an otherwise inaccessable roof of a building to get. Also a few of them are under NLA as well around all the pipes and water. The place you land off when you fall off NLA basically.

*********************************



The pictures you showed me do not contradict what I said. I agree with you. This does happen somewhat. Most of the time you can sneak around the trigger point for the enemy to get the yellow box. But there is a few times you just have to come back at a higher level as they do not move far away enough from the yellow box. These instances are not common but they do exist as you say.



I think this is intended by the developers as there is so many areas in Primordia and Oblivia you can access via clever mountain climbing. This is the no instant gratification theme of the game appearing again. Using your example you have two options. Leveling up (or busting out your skell) to kill the enemy, or using tricky jumps to bypass it. Usually you only have to bypass it once as you'll get the fast travel point after it.



In Sylvalum all bar two of the FN locations can have a probe put there at a low level. I did it at level 25 to level 30. Of the last two, one is acessable but not useable yet as it requires Mechanical Lv5 which you only get much later. The other I never saw. But that area I could not get into, I suspect it's an area you need a flying skell to access as it's all surrounded by very high walls. Sure there are areas where you can not kill anything but you can get past the enemies easily enough.
You can access a probe location in combat. You just have to cancel out of the arts selection so it's no longer on screen and then access the yellow box or FN site. You will fail and have to start again if you take any damage though. This includes environmental damage. This is especially in Cauldros and the meteor showers. Makes you press that A button really fast.

XC Wii gates you heavily though but that's the whole point. It's a scripted story and gating you so you prrogress through it's story in a linear fashion is the point of XC Wii.
XCX on the other hand does gate you in 3 small ways only.

• You can't fully explore till Chapter 4 (not too far into the game to be honest)
• A few areas (not many) requite a flying skell.
• One area in Cauldros is blocked by a forcefield. Not sure if or when I'll get access to it.

That's it really.

*********************************


True the game does. Now everytime I see a new cliff or mountain I ask myself, can I climb it. A lot of the time you can. It is trial and error as you'll never know if you can climb it till you try.


I agree totally here. We're all willing to help if you need it. I can probably tell you how to access any location in the game and if you can get there at a lower level or in a lower chapter of the story. Just ask and I'll tell you.


*********************************

I found a secret island in the game. It's not a landmark and it does not have a special name. But it's so far away from anything, I would not be surprised if some people did not find it. The yellow box there requires mechanical Lv.5 to access though so I don't know what's in it. Maybe someone can go there and open it and tell us. I found it by looking for alternate ways to finish the noctilum collectapedia before getting a skell and I just saw it in the distance and went to it.

Here is a screenshot of the island

Here is where the island is. If you were not searching for something in that corner of the map you'd never find it. From the bottom of Noctillum (one of the closest points you can access the ocean, this secret island is about 10 minutes of auto swim to get there.

Also you can see my exploration percentages for each area. This is in chapter 4 still. There is more hexagons I can complete still in chapter 4. I'll get to them eventually. But this is just a quick snapshot at what is possible early on in the story.

I am not sure if other such islands exist in the game. Later on I'll take a look.

I believe I found that as well. It contains a super weapon for your Skell, I think. I am going to find out again, as I am doing my second play through, this time going for 100%.

 

[Musicfan]

Once you get a skell that can fly do not fly at maximum height in sylvalum. Level 90 unique(tyrant) monster will wreck your skell. Q_Q

 

[CrimsonCavalier]

...

...

I do appreciate the offers for help, but I don't need help really. That's not what any of this is about. I'm Level 46 and just finished

Spoiler

Chapter 11 I think, the one where you battle the giant mech piloted by Ryyz ... either Chapter 10 or 11, I don't remember.

As I've said, I'm loving this game. This entire back-and-forth has been based on what Spirit was talking about, about being forced to grind, being prevented from going into certain areas for no other reason that "just because", and additionally, I threw in the fact that there are areas in the game where enemies spawn on you. Those are little gameplay elements that tend to throw off the experience.

You can call it whatever you want and try to justify it in whatever manner you choose. If you don't mind it, that's one thing. But to outright deny they exist is baffling. Maybe one of these days I'll do a video compilation of all the areas where treasures are being guarded by invisible enemies that are 100% unavoidable. They exist, they are not uncommon. They're all over the place. Same with FN probe locations.

@the8thark I understand that even those difficult probe locations can be installed, regardless of level or enemies surrounding them. That's not my point. I still think you're arguing against something that I'm not saying. I'm not saying it's impossible to place probes in areas that are being guarded by enemies. I'm saying that it seems annoying and unnecessary to require probes to be installed to progress with the story, and then guard those probe locations with high-level enemies.

Similarly, there are missions that are regarded as low-level missions, in which you have to kill level 15-16 enemies, yet those enemies are located in areas with level 38-41 enemies. Yes, the objective itself is easy, but the location of the objective is prohibitively difficult, especially at the level you receive the mission. And no, not every area is accessible via stealth, "clever" mountain jumping, etc..

There is a cave I wanted to explore recently that has high-level enemies at the entrance. There is no sneaking around them, and running through them only leads to more enemies deeper inside. That doesn't bother me, however. I enjoy having a place that I can't access, and then becoming stronger and being able to take it on. It's what made Xenoblade enjoyable; coming back to areas you couldn't beat after you became stronger. It's one of the things I really liked about Morrowind as well. There were just areas that were beyond you at a certain point in the game, and only through training/leveling up could you come back and conquer that cave/dungeon.

I don't want you to mix up the two separate issues. I don't mind having high-level enemies guarding areas. I don't mind high-level caves/areas that I can't access until I become stronger. I do mind having those high-level enemies/areas be right in the middle of something the game requires of me, especially at a low level, and I do mind the game unfairly throwing high-level enemies at me as a "surprise".

 

[Musicfan]

I do appreciate the offers for help, but I don't need help really. That's not what any of this is about. I'm Level 46 and just finished

Spoiler

Chapter 11 I think, the one where you battle the giant mech piloted by Ryyz ... either Chapter 10 or 11, I don't remember.

As I've said, I'm loving this game. This entire back-and-forth has been based on what Spirit was talking about, about being forced to grind, being prevented from going into certain areas for no other reason that "just because", and additionally, I threw in the fact that there are areas in the game where enemies spawn on you. Those are little gameplay elements that tend to throw off the experience.

You can call it whatever you want and try to justify it in whatever manner you choose. If you don't mind it, that's one thing. But to outright deny they exist is baffling. Maybe one of these days I'll do a video compilation of all the areas where treasures are being guarded by invisible enemies that are 100% unavoidable. They exist, they are not uncommon. They're all over the place. Same with FN probe locations.

@the8thark I understand that even those difficult probe locations can be installed, regardless of level or enemies surrounding them. That's not my point. I still think you're arguing against something that I'm not saying. I'm not saying it's impossible to place probes in areas that are being guarded by enemies. I'm saying that it seems annoying and unnecessary to require probes to be installed to progress with the story, and then guard those probe locations with high-level enemies.

Similarly, there are missions that are regarded as low-level missions, in which you have to kill level 15-16 enemies, yet those enemies are located in areas with level 38-41 enemies. Yes, the objective itself is easy, but the location of the objective is prohibitively difficult, especially at the level you receive the mission. And no, not every area is accessible via stealth, "clever" mountain jumping, etc..

There is a cave I wanted to explore recently that has high-level enemies at the entrance. There is no sneaking around them, and running through them only leads to more enemies deeper inside. That doesn't bother me, however. I enjoy having a place that I can't access, and then becoming stronger and being able to take it on. It's what made Xenoblade enjoyable; coming back to areas you couldn't beat after you became stronger. It's one of the things I really liked about Morrowind as well. There were just areas that were beyond you at a certain point in the game, and only through training/leveling up could you come back and conquer that cave/dungeon.

I don't want you to mix up the two separate issues. I don't mind having high-level enemies guarding areas. I don't mind high-level caves/areas that I can't access until I become stronger. I do mind having those high-level enemies/areas be right in the middle of something the game requires of me, especially at a low level, and I do mind the game unfairly throwing high-level enemies at me as a "surprise".

I have not run in to that problem I was able to get around the enemies with relative ease. Even in the section the requires you to infiltrate a level 60 area I was able to do it on my 5th attempt through finding were the enemies can not detect you. Yes I died but there is no real punishment for death ever I mountain claimed my why to every data prob in primordia that you could reach with out a skell. once I got a skell I was able to get through the canyon to place data probes further in obliva due to the increase of speed. Surprise enemies can easily be ran away from and avoided. The high level enemies near low level enemies require you to pay attention to your surroundings and actually think about what arts to use instead of spamming arts and using party commands to draw them away from the higher level enemies. Your problem is you are running in with out thinking "How do I avoid this fight?"

 

[Ronin]

Somebody did a clean vocal rip of Uncontrollable.

 

[CrimsonCavalier]

@the8thark There are a few islands like that. That one, I believe, holds the blueprints for a Super Weapon for Skells. There's another one that also holds blueprints.

On a side note, I found a pretty decent way to level up the side characters and get them affinity points.

First, take on as many side quests as you can. It helps if they're "tougher" type quests (i.e., they will require fighting enemies higher level than the level of the character you're trying to level up).

One easy way of course is to take a low level character with you and 3 other stronger members, and then fight enemies your level. Even if they die, they get XP.

But if you just do a bunch of quests with strong characters, then, right before you finish the quest (accept the reward from the quest-giver), just switch to the weaker characters you're trying to level up/affinity up. Those "tougher" quests will give plenty of XP and affinity. I just leveled up two characters 4 levels just by completing a bunch of quests I had done in Cauldros, even though they didn't go with me at all.

It's not the only way to do it, but it's super fast and easy, and doesn't require sacrificing a party member slot with a weaker character to do so.

 

[Kylo Ken]

Hmm, never DID figure out how to get Mech lv 5.

 

[CrimsonCavalier]

Hmm, never DID figure out how to get Mech lv 5.

Each skill has a special mission on the mission control board. They're like little riddles you have to figure out.