Xenoblade

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Heavy Brogs liked to jump down on the party as they were searching for items behind the waterfall in Millick Meadows.  There's ALWAYS something behind a waterfall in Japanese RPGs!  Like all Uniques up to this point, Migratory Circe the water bird was impossible to kill for this party so far.


Fusion Arts allowed Noah and friends to use two Arts of different classes at once if they weren't cooling down.  I forgot to mention this detail earlier:  Kevesi Arts recharge automatically, while Agnian Arts recharge with auto-attacks.  Ogre wishes it were a Kevesi class since its hammer auto-attacks are so slow, while Zephyr works well with Agnian cooldown. 


The party then entered the Eagus Wilderness, a large desert in the Fornis Region.  Panepane the Nopon received several collectibles like Dark Grapes in order to quench thirst for a sidequest.  Although characters like Taion and Mio complained of the heat, Eagus Wilderness was an ordinary location as far as game mechanics were concerned.  Nothing like having to drink water in King's Quest 5.


Trying to fight off three Level 15 Ragora Hox squirrels (?) in a Skirmish ended in a humiliating defeat.  In Hard mode, you really don't want to fight more than one enemy at a time at your level if possible.  Manana the Agnian Nopon taught the party to cook meals with collectibles.  The only recipe at the time was Manana's Battle Soup which yielded a 5% EXP and CP boost to level characters and classes slightly faster.  5% won't do much if enemies generally give double digit rewards.


One mandatory "side quest" involved killing a Level 16 Gyanna Aspar snake for Riku the Kevesi Nopon.  Gyanna Aspar activated a cutscene after Toppling the entire party.  This unlocked Chain Attacks.  Chain Attacks don't work the same way as in Xenoblade 1 where you try to combine Arts of the same color.  Xenoblade's 3 version has you pick a "plan" based on which character you want to lead with, each with different bonuses.  This time I used Art of Subjugation with Taion, which offered a 30% physical defense debuff during the Chain Attack. 


The tutorial screens mention other ways to do Chain Attacks, such as using an Attacker for the first strike or ending the combo with a Defender.  A second shorter phase of this particular Chain Attack had me using the Brave Assault plan with Noah, but I couldn't complete the full combo.  The first Chain Attack of the game hit Gyanna Aspar for 7957 damage total, but this wasn't as much as you might think.  The rest of the battle was slow going, particularly when the boss resisted Break.


Once the serpent was dead, Riku activated the gem crafting tutorial.  You don't equip gems to weapons and armor in Xenoblade 3, but rather each character has up to three slots that are unlocked at level milestones.  I made gems that either enhanced the power of a role, such as faster reviving or greater healing power for Eunie and Taion.  The Ogre definitely needed more Dexterity to avoid missing with slow attacks.  Noah as Zephyr equipped Tailwind II for an Agility (i.e. evasion) boost.


In a flashback cutscene, Noah was using an inferior sword to the conjured Blades used by Garvel the bully.  Garvel looked like one of Algus's relatives from Final Fantasy Tactics, and will probably be a villain later in the game.  Noah could call his Blade at all times, but chose not to since he didn't like fighting with such deadly weapons.  Noah might as well be a less cheerful Shulk.  Riku offered Noah an ancient katana called Lucky Seven that was far stronger than any Blade, but he was going to save it for later.  Noah renamed Lucky Seven, but wouldn't explain to Mio what he called it.  "Monado", maybe?  After the scene, I could now change the time of day in the menu like Xenoblade 1.


(The tutorials probably sound excessive in these posts, but they are reasonable in the game, especially for the mechanics that are different in Xenoblade 3.  Don't expect a scenario as bad as Pokemon Sun and Moon's first island.)


EDIT:  I'll be very disappointed if the Queen of Keves doesn't shout "You'll pay for your insolence!" when the party inevitably fights her.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

The party fared better in this part, since they butchered their first Unique at Level 18!  Sure, Migratory Circe was 4 levels lower, but this was Hard mode and everyone except for Eunie was at low HP by the end of the fight.  One Chain Attack combo dealt 30,005 damage.  A gravestone appeared where Migratory Circe used to live, and a tutorial screen said I could fight it again by visiting it.


Level 14 Land Volffs continued to harass the party in Eagus Wilderness.  They could still threaten the team if they attacked as a pack.  It seems you have to be at least 5 levels above the enemy for them to leave you alone.


Ethel and her Colony 4 army attacked with a Ferronis at the entrance of Nih'l Valley, so Noah told the party to retreat to Bennel Cave.  Occasionally Kevesi reinforcements rushed after the party, but they were easy to defeat.  The second Unique to croak was Rambler Curalie, who put up a considerable fight and killed most of the party.  For most of the rest of this part I was playing as Taion in the role of Medic Gunner.  This gave me control over healing and reviving the others, though Taion still had to wait for his cooldowns to expire.  Chain Attacks were used to Daze the opponent whenever possible, since there was no Ogre on the team to Launch it.


Why did I have 2 Tacticians instead of making one of them an Ogre?  Desynchronized class leveling, and the fact that classes maxed out at 10 in this early stage of Xenoblade 3.  Having too many Healers slowed down the pace of battles, but may have saved me in certain boss fights.


In Hegemon's Seat, Ethel cornered the party and challenged them to a boss fight.  Silvercoat Ethel was Level 16 and was supported by Level 15 Kevesi troops.  It was best to kill the minions first before concentrating on the boss.  Although she had reduced most of the party to critical HP by the end, they taunted her with an overkill Chain Attack for 19,184 damage.


Once Ethel was dead, Consul K entered the ring.  The Interlink feature was finally unlocked so I could use Ouroboros transformations in battle.  Noah + Mio's Ouroboros could try to Break enemies with Phantom Slash, debuff Attack with Dragon Tail, or use Unison Strike for a high critical chance.  Kevesi troops sometimes spawned to fight the party, and Noah and friends killed them first whenever they showed up.  Consul K's most notable attack was Hellbound Hammer which could Topple a party member. 


The next cutscene revealed the true purpose of the Flame Clock.  Consul K used its energy to drain life from the Colony 4 troops to restore his health.  The only way to deal with it was for Noah to slash the Flame Clock on the Ferronis with his Lucky Seven sword.  Eunie + Taion and Lanz + Sena unlocked their corresponding Ouroboros forms in the next battle, which had Healer and Defender based Arts respectively.


Level 17 Moebius K was a simple but long battle.  Chain Attacks tended to fizzle out due to having 3 Healers in the party.  You need to get more than 100% to use Chain Attack specific moves, and Healers stall the gauge at 99%.  So it seems the best option is to use the Healers at the beginning of the combo and then attack with an Attacker or Defender class once it's close to 100%.


Ouroboros forms had multiple levels based on how long I waited before using them.  So far it seemed only Levels 0 and 1 were available.  After K died, he was found to be an old man when unmasked.  Even the concept of an old person was shocking to Kevesi and Agnian people since they grew to adulthood and died within 10 years at most.  Presumably the Ouroboros powers will cancel out the short life span since it's not associated with the Flame Clock.  This means the Moebius demons function like jiangshi, the Chinese vampires who feed on life force rather than blood.


Ethel was only injured instead of dead, and reconciled with the party.  In the earlier cutscenes, she saw the party members as shadowy wraiths instead of humans.  Colony 4 formed a truce with Noah and company, and a tutorial explained the Ouroboros upgrade system.  The Soul Tree in the Interlink menu allowed me to increase stats and unlock new Arts with Soul Points.  The "overleveling" needed for Hard mode probably gave me a large account of Soul Points to start with.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Level 15 Sharpwitted Tracy the giant camel took two attempts to defeat at Level 20.  The trick was to temporarily swap all characters back to their original classes, even though they were maxed out for this point in the game.  Even high levels weren't safe when they had to fight two regular Level 16 Amal Ropl monsters in a sand pit.  Never take a Hard mode fight for granted.


The wings on Eunie's hair and the Keves Queen made me suspect a connection to the High Entia, or Melia's people from Xenoblade 1.  Mio and the Agnus Queen had long, upward-pointed ears, perhaps implying a Xenoblade 2 connection I don't know about?  Keves seems to be a reference to the first game, particularly with their numbered colony systems.  Agnus colonies instead use Greek letters:  Mio, Taion, and Sena came from Colony Gamma.  No one knew what a "City" was, and their best guess was that it was like a colony.


Another plot detail that probably has something to do with Xenoblade 1 is the "black fog" that practically blinded Consul K in cutscenes.  In Future Connected, the Switch epilogue to Xenoblade 1, the antagonists are Fogbeasts that had to be driven out of Achamoth Alcamoth, which was now on the floating continent Bionis Shoulder.  


Colony 4 formed a tentative alliance with the party because they were free from the Flame Clock and Consul K, but they still had some loyalty to Keves, and Ethel wanted to report to the Keves Queen eventually.  It was at this point that true sidequests appeared.  Some became available after overhearing conversations with a yellow circle surrounding a lower case "i".


One new feature was the Hero Quest where guest characters could join the party and make one party member "inherit" their class.  Hazardous Jarrahed the Level 16 giant snake attacked the heroes unprovoked, so its gravestone and corresponding fast travel spot were added to the map.  Ethel and the party destroyed some Level 17 Hunter Volff hyenas (?), and Noah unlocked the dual wielding attacker class Flash Fencer.  Flash Fencer had some similarities to Swordfighter since some of its moves gained damage bonuses when used beside or behind an enemy. 


Another side quest had the party kill seventeen Level 18 Hard Hox desert squirrels, though fortunately not all at once!  That would have annihilated both the party, and probably the Switch frame rate.  The encounter lasted long enough for a Chain Attack to occur.  Didn't seem to be able to switch targets after dropping one enemy to 0 HP, but spread attacks hit other Hard Hoxes. 


Attempting to rescue Colony 9 in another Hero Quest led to a humiliating defeat.  A squad of elite Kevesi troops including Zeon the boss wiped out the party, and without any special Ouroboros or Moebius powers.  They did manage to fend off a lesser Agnian party in the desert to start a Colony Iota quest, however.


Affinity was finally explained in this session.  Its purpose is to give non-combat bonuses, such as collecting items from farther away, or opening trade routes for Nopon caravans.


Completing more side quests raised the team to Levels 23-24.  Some Colony 4 quests can't be done until probably the mid 30s since a few of its residents demand the killing of several high level boss monsters.  I think the level recommendation for quests only accounts for Normal instead of Hard.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Househunter Carly the Level 21 hermit crab near Colony 9 obliterated the Level 24 party with its charging Cavalry and Bubble Cloud attacks.  Each could hit multiple party members at a time for far more than any Healer could keep up with.  Noah and friends had no more success against the Colony 9 Expedition blocking the way home.


While traveling around the Dannagh Desert, our "heroes" defeated some troops waiting by a supply drop, after making so many speeches in cutscenes about not wanting to kill any of the brainwashed people.  In Skirmishes, the party always picked the side that gave Nopon Coins as a reward, since those could be used for gem crafting.  Affinity was easier to come by than Nopon Coins.  For anyone who wants to know animal plurals in Aionios, a group of Tirkins is called a "murder", and a group of Ignas is called a "lounge".


(You aren't really supposed to go to Dannagh Desert yet since the monsters are in the mid 20s level range, but I explored some of the region anyway.)


On the way to the next main story event, the party made a Level 19 Unruffled Narrah armored dinosaur extinct.  Valdi the Kevesi engineer attacked the party with a Level 19 Equites robot and a Level 19 Velites.  Valdi himself was a Healer class that must have been an upgraded Medic Gunner.  The real threat was the fact that there were 3 enemies, not that each one was individually challenging.  Valdi turned out to be a nice character in defeat, and the party retrieved some machine parts necessary to build a small robot so he could return to Colony 30.


Consul Q destroyed the small robot with his mech as soon as the party arrived in Colony 30.  He found out Valdi wasn't interested in building war machines anymore.  The robot at least managed to fend off a few attacks with its force field before being crushed.  Consul Q didn't attack with his Moebius form, and instead piloted the Level 22 Incomplete Siege-Lev.  Despite its name, Incomplete Siege-Lev was more than sufficient to provide a difficult boss fight.


Humbling Smash could Topple a character, Heat Injection burned characters within its radius, and Erasure Buster was strong enough to KO someone outright.  Some of these moves were probably Ether type, which is always harder to defend against than physical moves. The hectic battle system and lack of appropriate orders in the tactics menu prevented me from spacing out the characters' formation like I would have wanted.  Much of the fight was spent reviving fallen characters with Lanz the Medic Gunner.  It's often a good idea to play as a Healer since the AI handles them less effectively than Defenders or Attackers.  The battle was long, but Chain Attacks featuring Valdi's healing skills prevented defeat.


Noah slashed the Colony 30 Flame Clock in the next cutscene and freed the town.  This made Keves's Warning Level rise to 3, and unlocked side quests for Colony 30.  Valdi joined the party as a guest Hero and gave Lanz the War Medic class.  Valdi was generous enough to yield a Traversal Skill too:  Wall Climbing.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Househunter Carly was finally defeated with a Level 26 party, along with the four members of the Colony 9 Expedition.  Zeon joined the party as a Hero to ensure they weren't traitors.  On the way back to Colony 9, they added Sycophantic Lilith's gravestone to their fast travel locations.  Noah, Eunie, and Lanz weren't welcome in Colony 9, especially among Kite's faction.  Colony 9 had been demoted to Tin rank, and the idea of eating shoe leather may not have been hyperbole.


To prove their loyalty to Colony 9, Zeon and the party vanquished several Level 23 parties of Agnus troops in the Everblight Plains, including a Testudo robot. Noah, Eunie, and Lanz leveled to 27 thanks to bonus experience from the quests.  Noah hacked the Flame Clock to pieces, but then had to fight Moebius B to save Colony 9 from the Consuls. 


Moebius B should have been simple to defeat since he was only a single Level 24 target.  But this demon had high HP and many tricks to deal with a party of six.  Power Hold grabbed a character and threw them violently to the ground for major damage.  Blaze Party inflicted the burning status.  Blast Wave attacked a wide radius, countering the typical tactic of setting up evasion and defense boosting circles, or concentrating the aggro on a single party member.  Will Defenders even be viable late in the game without a party wide defense boost like Monado Armor from Xenoblade 1?  Toppling was a frequent occurrence, and I often had to mash buttons to escape it.  The party managed to drain about half of Moebius B's life bar before succumbing to injuries.


There were enough side quests remaining that the party helped out Colony 30.  Wall Climbing up vines opened up new areas, and finding new locations rewarded them with bonus experience.  Unfortunately, one Keves supply drop box was locked for unknown reasons.  A Mystery Man in the Murmur Rise (?) area of Millick Meadows attacked the heroes after they picked up a small object near a cliff.  Although he was Level 28, Mystery Man was an Attacker class without too many debuffs.  He seemed to dodge many attacks, and liked to attack with flashy Execution lasers.  When half his HP bar was gone, Kevesi troops pursued Mystery Man until he jumped off a cliff into water.


(Xenoblade 3 water, like in most video games, has no surface tension.)


Noah's team defeated the Level 25 Kevesi troops and had to follow Mystery Man's footprints.  Sometimes these footprints were separated even on dry land, so it was trickier than it sounds.  Along the way, they had to avoid a giant Level 80 Unique ape.  But the Indiscreet Gombaba frog was only Level 12.  Must have missed that Unique on the first pass through Millick Meadows!  Strangely, Indiscreet Gombaba could still damage the party, so I had to pay attention during the fight.  High levels aren't as guaranteed a victory in Xenoblade 3 on Hard as they are in Xenoblade 1 where a +6 advantage means most enemies can't touch you!


The party protected Mystery Man from a Kevesi squad that went up to a Level 27 Sagittarius robot.  After the victory, Mystery Man said his name was Gray and let the party keep the small object.  Gray became another guest Hero and gave the Full Metal Jaguar class to Eunie.  Full Metal Jaguar is an Attacker role that specializes in rolling around the battlefield with the right stick and gaining damage bonuses from the front or back with its Arts.  It also has an accuracy buff stance, but Full Metal Jaguar doesn't seem to miss often anyway.


With Full Metal Jaguar, Eunie tried to gun down Moebius B.  This was doomed to fail because many of the second tier classes lacked Break skills.  In order to win at Levels 27-28, I had to switch Mio to Swordfighter in order to use the Break-Topple-Daze combo to disable the boss long enough to slow the pace of the battle.  Even then it was a close victory.  One note about Ouroboros forms is that they're always the same regardless of what classes you have equipped.  For example, Taion + Eunie will always have the Healer form even if neither is a Tactician, Medic Gunner, or War Medic.  But if Lanz is a Healer, he will become the Defender Ouroboros along with Sena.  So be careful with transformations if the team needs to restore HP! 


Zeon taught Noah the Guardian Commander class, a Defender role whose power depends on how frequently it's attacked.  It seems unremarkable so far except that it starts with an Art that inflicts Topple.  While completing Colony 9 quests about gathering materials and sending back reluctant off-seers, the party killed a Level 13 Perturbed Bilkin moth.  They fought some antagonistic Colony 9 residents over the right to deliver supplies and grew to Level 29.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

The party dashed through Alfeto Valley, and all were "welcomed" into Colony Gamma.  The Kevesi characters were suspicious since all of their own colonies either wanted to kill them outright, or at least spoke resentfully towards them.  Teach the commander wanted to show them the view somewhere, which meant exercise that exhausted the Kevesi people in cutscenes but was ordinary in terms of gameplay.  Teach taught everyone the Scree Walking Traversal skill to run up sand slopes.  I'll have to go back to the deserts in the Fornis region and test it out some more.


Everyone had leveled to 30 by the point they fought Teach, which unlocked a second accessory slot.  Teach himself was easy to defeat since he was a single Level 26 Healer.  It was fun to see Mio the Ogre use a fusion of Shadow Eye and Big Impact to send Teach flying during a Chain Attack!  Teach revealed that he was skeptical of what the party was going to do with their Ouroboros powers, but sided with them against the Level 27 Moebius G.


Moebius G wasn't nearly as difficult as Colony 9's Moebius B.  That's because G seemed to rely more on brute force with moves like Calamity Charge than Topple or burning ailments. Moebius G protected itself late in the fight with Armor Veil from his Reflective Shell, which temporarily blocked attacks.  Issue Challenge augmented G's critical hit rate.  


Saving Colony Gamma didn't even raise the Warning Level for Agnus to 1.  Keves must be more vigilant than Agnus.  Teach gave his Thaumaturge class to Mio.  Thaumaturge is officially a Healer class, though it seems more focused on preventing damage with Armor Veil fields than restoring HP.  Spearpoint Thrust inflicts Bind, which seems to stop enemies from attacking for a few seconds.


The party trained the Colony Gamma troops in several rounds by fighting them in a "mock battle" which was as tough as a real boss.  When it was down to just Foots and Nagumo, they actually lost.  Nagumo was the Defender when he pulled aggression towards himself, and Foots must have been an Attacker.  On Take 2, Foots was Overkilled with a 116,040 damage Chain Attack, and Nagumo was easy to take on without Foots's offensive pressure.


At the end of this part, the whole party is at Level 31.  They'll probably make the next main story boss fight into an anticlimax whenever they get around to actually advancing the plot.  (It's weird to see the liberation of both Colony 9 and Colony Gamma as a Chapter 3 side quest!)

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

If you want to imagine what this section was like, picture the scene from Spaceballs where they literally comb the desert.  The party didn't spend the whole time in Dannagh Desert and Eagus Wilderness, but it sure felt like it.  One main objective was to kill the three "bosses" for a Colony 4 side quest.


Boss #1:  Level 31 Debria Volff.  The party was also at Level 31, and defeated it without too much trouble because it was a basic wolf with high stats.  No tricks like Toppling characters or hitting everyone at once. 


The Milio Trick Caverns were a secret side location in Dannah Desert that involved simple rotation puzzles.  Another "challenge" were Elite monsters like a Level 24 Pawn Arachno which were simple to defeat.  The regular monsters were so beneath the party that they ignored Noah and friends altogether.  Clearing Milio Trick Caverns opened Sage's Garden and Sage's Domicile, where a shop that only accepted silver Nopon Coins was found. 


Level 27 Crystalline DuGarre in a quicksand pit overwhelmed the party no matter how strong they were, and I fought it a couple of times.  Cursed Cuisine was a charging attack, Komodo Fire could burn, and Fin of Fear body slammed the party for major damage.


Serrato Spring was a Secret Area in the style of Xenoblade 1.  The blue water showed off the graphics, and it gave more experience than discovering a new location usually did.


Stoneclipper Gorse the scorpion was a threat even though it was only Level 25, and dodged attacks with its Bewitching move.  Noah and Mio defeated it when transformed into an Ouroboros.  Hedonist Tirkin was also difficult in spite of it being Level 23.  Hedonist Tirkin hit fast and hard with its auto-attacks, and could Topple with Warrior's Shield.  After a Break-Topple-Daze combo, Mio the Thaumaturge Burst the Hedonist Tirkin like a piñata with Demise Thrust and gained some bonus collectibles.  This didn't kill the Unique, however, and Lanz finished it off with his Tyrant Wave in a Chain Attack.


In the misnamed Ribbi Flats (too mountainous!), the party struck down Level 20 Perspicacious Oldar the triceratops.  Its Breath inflicted Resistance Down, but I'm not sure what that debuff did.  Horn Dance hit multiple times and inflicted Break, but Break is useless without Topple.  Eunie Overkilled the dinosaur with Pinion Primed laser blasts from a Chain Attack.


Boss #2:  Level 31 Tovaris Taos.  The phoenix sat on top of a rock perch and shot Dino Flares at the party.  Otherwise it wasn't much of a problem, even if Eunie liked to run far away from the other characters and cause annoyances for Healers.


Back in Dannagh Desert, our heroes killed Level 22 Scornful Daria the canine (?).  Its gimmick was to Call Allies to summon Level 21 Kallas Skwaror companions.  Demise Thrust Burst some items out of Scornful Daria, and Noah + Mio along wiht Lanz + Sena Ouroboros forms dealt the final blows.


The two Level 25 Growsa Aspars were Elites instead of Uniques, but they still killed the party multiple times, including at least one incident at Level 32!  They were guarding a Container and could have been avoided, but I had to kill them for the sake of vengeance.  Even with Ouroboros forms and Chain Attacks it was difficult.  Lanz + Sena is meant to take hits for the other characters, but Burning Rain doesn't attract as much aggro as it should. 


In the most unfair event in this session, a flying Level 87 Dunesea Marcellus crushed the party out of nowhere.  Xenoblade 3 has a lenient death system which only sends you elsewhere rather than activating a Game Over screen. 


Boss #3:  Level 31 Midona Arachno and four Level 29 Drone Arachnos.  No, the team couldn't lure the Drone Arachnos away and kill them one by one.  To clear the quest, all five enemies had to die in one battle.  At Level 32, it was easy to kill the Drone Arachnos one by one.  Midona Arachno liked to block and heal some HP with Cocoon, but the heroes whittled down its health gradually.  Lanz + Sena inflicted Topple once with their Sudden Impact Ouroboros Art.  Queen Bomb was the most dangerous enemy Art since it slammed everyone at once.  Midona Arachno died to an Overkill Chain Attack with a 98,969 damage total.


When all three bosses were dead, the party returned to Colony 4 and grew to Level 33 with the bonus experience from the quest.  Now they'll finally advance the Chapter 3 story since there's not much else to do.  Other areas such as the northern part of Everblight Plain are effectively blocked off by high level enemies.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

If Noah wondered why he had to climb the Precipice of Judgment to Conqueror's Peak if the region was called Ribbi Flats, he kept his suspicions to himself.  Noah and Mio speculated what it would be like to grow old while looking at Armus Dinosaurs in the Rae-Bel Tableland.  Several Consuls were watching the party in their movie theater, giving an ominous hint of an Eclipse.


Our heroes swam across Riez Tarn to Perrato Cave and also visited Isnie Ledge.  The only reason I know the word "tarn" in the first place was because I saw it in an Edgar Allan Poe story.  Forerunners' Tower was another Secret Area that had a nice view of the Fornis region.  In The Lace Subterranean, the party thought Level 22 Dapper Sepiar the sea urchin (?) was going to be an easy Unique.  It wasn't, especially once some Tirkin friends entered the ring.  Heat Gas could Daze the whole party, and Spiky Hammer pounded everyone repeatedly when Dapper Sepiar's HP was below half.  Even Chain Attacks only hit for around 36,000, and the Level 33 party was forced to retreat in shame.


Level 24 Wraithfin Segna in Riez Tarn was manageablel, however.  One advantage Noah's party has over Shulk's is that they can fight while swimming!  It wasn't too easy since characters like Eunie sometimes died and had to be revived.


Old Kana Battlefield was the next major story location.  Husks from Keves and rusted machinery littered the barren landscape.  Eunie found her own dog tags on a corpse!  In her "past life", she was a Sharpshooter from Colony 18, and looked exactly the same.  Neither Agnians nor Kevesi ever mention metaphysics apart from the "off-seer" flute playing funeral ritual.  So it's likely that the people subject to the Flame Clock can reincarnate to fight again.  Colony 18 was Gold rank, so it was odd to see it completely defeated.


Lepus the Level 24 Agnian robot attacked the party.  I was right about the next mandatory boss being an anticlimax, since Lepus didn't have many tricks compared to the Uniques the team had fought already.  Lepus turned out to be an unusually advanced "autonomous" Levnis from Colony Lambda where Taion once lived. 


Level 25 Heretical Saurow was a simple Unique except for its Hypno-Light that forced me to button mash out of Sleep status occasionally.  Sleep seems to last until being attacked again, which isn't effective in a combat system like Xenoblade 3's.  Noah handed over materials to complete a Colony 30 sidequest, but advancing the story unlocked a couple more in Colony 30 proper and Dannagh Desert.  At this point most enemies were easy enough that I abstained from using bonus experience from quests to level up any more.


The party reactivated a Ferronis in the Rae-Bel Tableland to unlock a new collectible Fabricator and a Nopon shop.  Bambam the Nopon and Dorin the human were runaways from an earlier Colony 4 sidequest, and they reappeared to help the team unlock a supply drop box because they were scared of the noises it was making.  After fighting a token battle with a Level 25 Medolya Feris, Bambam and Dorin handed over the combat supplies to the party since they were actually hoping to find food. 


Noah had now come so far that the game had to have a new region:  Pentelas.  Urayan Tunnels is the first area here, and the name should sound more familiar to Xenoblade 2 players than to me.  Riku the Kevesi Nopon has his own Hero Quest next, so will this unlock a class that plays like Riki from Xenoblade 1?  I considered a Riki solo once, but his high HP + healing Art belied his weak defenses.


EDIT:  At this point, I have a large surplus of SP from opening Containers, killing Uniques, and completing sidequests. Clearly the developers didn't intend for the player to get sidetracked this much before continuing the story!  Many Ouroboros upgrades are currently locked.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Manana used a spinning attack in a cutscene to kill some spiders, and Riku joined her to form a single Hero for the Princess Arachno boss battle.  Princess Arachno was Level 26 and could infinitely spawn Level 24 Savant Arachnos.  It took me a bit to figure out that detail, so I concentrated attacks on the minions as in earlier fights until I realized it was futile.  Princess Arachno sometimes defended with Cocoon like Midona Arachno the Unique. 


Riku and Manana taught the Yumsmith class to Sena.  This was an Attacker role with a Kevesi cooldown bar, with an emphasis on Breaking enemies from the side with Flashback, inflicting Blaze with Energy Grenade, and gaining damage bonuses from the front with Extended Slash.  It was sort of an upgraded Swordfighter.


Raucous Ron the Level 27 flying insect Unique killed several characters, and the party barely managed to kill it.  This is when I realized Mio was the only Healer on the team after I'd changed Sena to Yumsmith.  Oops!  So I set Taion to Medic Gunner and advanced through the purple smoke to fight many Level 26 Puzzling Special Unit troops from Agnus.  The best way to deal with them was to use the Lanz + Sena Ouroboros form to hit many of them at once with Burning Rain and Ray of Punishment.


Our heroes jumped into the Cavern Waterway and followed the current to the Aquifer Exhaust in Great Cotte Falls for the next boss battles.  Commander Isurd, a formerly compassionate Agnian commander from Taion's past, attacked the party to avenge Nimue, who'd been killed by a reckless plan of Taion's.  Isurd piloted the Level 28 Lambda Ferronis, which had a low power to size ratio. 


The party's attacking range extended well beyond the red "field of death" surrounding the boss, so Lambda Ferronis's area of attack move was not a threat.  Lambda Ferronis occasionally summoned Level 26 Avis robots, though these were an annoyance rather than a danger.  Break + Topple was possible via Chain Attacks, which seem to have a chance to ignore status resistances.  Level 28 Testudo robots appeared late in the fight to replace the Avis.  Besides sending in more robots, Lambda Ferronis tended to attack multiple party members with Fire Blindly both in battle and in the post-victory cutscenes.


At this point, the party learned they could switch to multiple forms of each Ouroboros.  Taion used his in the cutscene to create illusions, and eventually the heroes flipped over the turtle-shaped Ferronis.  I guessed Consul J's identity only about a minute before it was revealed.  As soon as Noah recognized the voice, I knew he was Joran, the struggling Healer from the childhood flashback scenes.  Joran bragged about being resurrected as a Moebius, and now he could make "mud puppets" to mimic the dead and psychologically torment the living.  That wasn't the real Isurd.


Level 29 Consul J crushed the Level 33 party.  Whip Crash could cause Daze, and his attacks hit so hard they force me to use bonus experience.  You'd think Consul J would be a pushover at Level 37, right?  WRONG!  Joran's attacks were still strong, and Ruined Marionette crashed down and nearly killed the team each time it was cast. 


The party had a few methods of dealing with Joran this time.  Noah had maxed out Guardian Commander for the time being, and switched to Medic Gunner since he had a B rank with it.  Having three Healers partially kept up with Joran's attacks, and Medic Gunner had innate Dazing abilities.  The Ouroboros Order in Chain Attack was now available so long as the gauge was Interlink gauge was at 3.  For Lanz + Sena, it was Demon Punisher, which increased the Chain Attack damage to a total of 172,760.  This still left the Ouroboros gauge at 3 for further use, so I tested out Sena's Dino Upper swing for 6015 damage.


Joran teleported away in the present after the last flashback scene of him showed him being crushed under a building after saving Lanz.  Colony Lambda was ahead at Great Cotte Falls, and now certain abilities could be shared between Ouroboros partners.  Still can't buy any more skills with SP yet.


I think Urayan Tunnels is supposed to remind the player of Xenoblade 1, not just Xenoblade 2.  Princess Arachno is a reference to the Arachno Queen fight from that game's Chapter 3, and the elevator sequences reminded me of the Colony 6 mines.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

I was wrong about not finding a way to spend Soul Points.  What was accurate was that the Kevesi characters had run into the barrier of locked nodes on the skill tree.  However, now that the Agnian characters had their own versions of Ouroboros forms, they could fill out part of their trees.


Now that our heroes were Level 37, they slaughtered Crystalline DuGarre and Dapper Sepiar.  Crystalline DuGarre still put up a respectable fight for a Unique that was 10 levels lower.  A Chain Attack that ended in a Big Bang Implosion from an Ouroboros dealt a total of 186,113 damage to Crystalline DuGarre.


Back in Great Cotte Falls, the party discovered the Secret Area called Hidden Freshwater Inlet.  There, they confronted a Level 37 Massive Georges which was essentially a clone of Crystalline DuGarre.  When this Unique was down to around 30%-40% HP or so, it eliminated the Healers and doomed the party.  Only Healers can revive fallen characters.


Colony Lambda's residents recovered from the unconsciousness forced upon them by Consul J's "mud puppet" experiments.  This unlocked several side quests, from making a new canteen to finding an off-seer to fixing defective automated Levnises.  The last one in that list added Isurd as a Hero and gave his Strategos class to Taion.  Strategos was a Healer class with more offensive power than earlier Healers, though I may explain the classes more in a later post.  The boss fight for the robot quest was two Level 29 Armadillos that sometimes activated Armor Veil with Ether Shield.  Chain Attacks helped here, and once the first Armadillo was down, the second was easy.


Noah and Mio performed the off-seer flute song for the "mud puppets", since Noah apparently thought he should "atone" even though they were soulless automata.  The other party members wondered if there was an afterlife, since those who died in battle couldn't return their life force to the Queen in the Homecoming ceremony.  Some thought so because sparkling motes flew up during the ritual, though these motes arose even for the "mud puppets". 


The Consuls discussed their entertainment in the evil movie theater.  One of these was a chess based strategy game played with real Kevesi and Agnian troops.  I'm guessing that their leader Z is somehow Zanza, and that the off-seer song secretly helps the Moebius cause.  (Or else they wouldn't insist on every colony having this funeral rite!)


Now I'm searching all the free colonies for side quests, and there are several for Colony 9 at the beginning of Chapter 4.  They're still starving, probably because they're too stupid to think of hunting the wildlife just outside town.  As always in an RPG, the player characters have to do everything.