lol, when do I get that Skell?

Very late! Unlocks after Chapter 12 and requires Level 60.

After that it can be crafted using the AM Console if you have the appropriate materials, which are surprisingly easy to get if you farm tickets using the online mode.

Also got a skell! Going to see if I can buy more skells right now or just buy some weapons for it.

Definitely get some weapons for it - the “artes” you have in combat when piloting as Skell are linked to the weapons you have installed, so just getting something in each weapon slot will make it way more useful in combat. I don’t think the Level 20 Skell you get for free can equip the stronger weapon lines like Phoenix or G-Buster, but you can get at least a regular Buster which does fairly reasonable damage.

You can get a second Level 20 Skell for free if you do the “New Skell on the Block” Affinity Mission, which also gets you a new party member. Also notice that the Skells sold in the shop need the pilot to be at least Level 30, so at least for me it took a while before I could get them.

I have one big complaint though, about the map and enemy placements in this game. For instance, a quest with recommended level 20, has level 30 or above enemies in the main path, and it isn’t easy to go around them.

I think the main problem is less that those enemies are in the main path (similar things happen in all Xenoblade game), and more that some of them are very agressive and will not only attack on sight but chase you for a long time.

The good news is that this should be far less annoying now that you got a Skell, it moves quite fast in vehicle mode and running away is much easier.

but that level 20 one was an affinity quest

Making a separate save before an affinity or story quest is something I highly recommend, and I agree the game should have a way to drop from them.

Playing Xenoblade X!

Spent quite a lot of time trying to unlock the second-to-last character the in roster.

And what a pain it was. Needs several quest lines completed (including “Definian Downfall” which is a hard and annoying mission), then 65% surveil for Cauldros, then you need to go to specific location on the map that is not marked to get the recruitment mission. If you’re stuck trying to get that character please protect your sanity and go check a guide.

After that I finally got started on Chapter 13. Completed the first part, then spent some time getting affinity and class levels maxed for the last two chracters. I’m going to do the second part of Chapter 13 next since it’s required for an affinity mission, but I’m not sure if after that I’ll just go finish the storyline or focus on clearing the large backlog of affinity missions I have.

Also done griding materials for an Ares 90 skell, just waiting for the Miranium to fill so I can build it.

Edit: LMAO, the Ares 90 is ridiculous. I just got it, added three Weapon Attack XX mods on the Aghasura Cannon, and did a quick test… here’s what happened.

From videos I’ve seen I’d say it’s definitely in the “bullet hell” category, but doesn’t look like it’s among of the craziest/hardest in the genre.

Oh, I remember this one! It’s a G-Rev shooter that got a console release back on the 360 days. I didn’t pick it up back then but will probably do so on the Switch.

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No, I’m the same. But I’ve been underwhelmed by most Switch 2 news. 🙁

Asides from the prices and the overuse of Game Key cards by 3rd party publishers there’s nothing really negative on what they’ve announced… but I’m also having a hard time naming something about it that really gets me hyped.

Also thinking about getting the skell before that.

Definitely do it, the game changes a lot (in good ways) after you get it.

About that 16 hour long trip, how long does your battery last? I am noticing mine only lasts about an hour or so when playing XCX (with usb dongle of headphones attached)

Not a lot, probably 2h or so using a bluetooth headset (no dongle), but I carry a powerbank which gives me a couple extra charges and this particular plane also had power outlets which made it easier.

Playing Xenoblade X!

I was quite overleveled from exploring and doing side-quests so I decided to rush through some story missions during the long 16h trip home. Finished Chapter 12 which was was the ending of the original WiiU version.

So I’m quite curious to see where the extra story content goes.

Hard to call it a “loophole” when it was listed on Nintendo’s own website less than two weeks ago.

You can check it by making these choices:

Click “How to share games with other users”, then “Digital games”, then “Multiple users”, and finally “How to play the same digital game at the same time”.

I only own a single Switch so I never used this, but considering they listed this officially before I’d say the compaints about downgrade are 100% reasonable.

I haven’t done the update yet, but supposedly there’s an option to stay with the old system if you prefer that.

System Settings -> User Settings -> Online License Settings -> Use Online License

By default AFAIK.

If you have it on Airplane mode and put it in the dock it also re-enables bluetooth while keeping wifi off.

That guide looks interesting, but apparently you need a skell for those.

There are some leveling up tricks before you get a Skell, but the main guide requires one (and there’s an even better version if you have a flying skell, which is the one I used). I highly recommend subscribing to Enel’s channel since he has excellent in-depth Xenoblade videos, including combat guides, farming guides, best skills and setups for all weapons and so on.

Need more of those. Have tons of mining probes though

Research probes feel limited even later in the game. Mining ones are aplenty though, even higher level ones so you can build some crazy combos.

Am I playing it wrong? Should I explore more? I try to explore but there are high level monsters everywhere and then I die, and think maybe I am not supposed to go there yet. Going to explore Noctilum now, so that I can start Chapter 6.

Scary monsters are everywhere, just be careful to not draw their attention. It’s kinda annoying when you bump into ones that are very aggressive and keep chasing you forever, but that’s one of the things that get a lot easier once you have a Skell since you can outrun them on vehicle mode.

Playing Xenoblade X!

Somehow still on Chapter 9. 😆

Playtime was limited due to the work trip I’m on right now, but I managed to get some good progress before flying away from home. I tried the last method in Enel’s guide for leveling up classes which was ridiculously effective, I got all characters (including the main one) to max class level in less than 2h while also going up something like 10 levels.

Money is a bit tight right now because I bought a Level 50 Skell and those are very pricy, ended up spending some time optimizing FrontierNav setup. Other than that I did a lot of side-quests, but need to find some time to sit down and start moving with the Affinity and Story quests.

That’s including “explorable” water/cloud sea portions for all games, but even if you cut down to just the landmass the XCX map is still around 100 square kilometers… and that’s not counting the parts of the map that have several “layers” like mountains, caves and floating islands.

Found a video of someone who did their best measuring the worlds of the Xenoblade series. They meme a bit about XC2 being the biggest if you include the Cloud Sea, but put the real measurements at the end.

Their results, in square kilometers:

• XC1 28.83
• XC2 21.10
• XC3 40.62
• XCX 355.78

The opposite, it probably still the biggest map in the series.

Transversal is relatively fast because you character is quite speedy even before Skells, but the overall area is massive.

Repair something, Lin’s affinity quest.

Got lucky since I already had the necessary items for that mission, but a friend of mine also complained about being stuck on that one for a while. Not being able to cancel Affinity/Story missions is one of the few annoyances from left the original that I wish had been fixed on the DE.

I am still not sure which probes to place where, currently I am going with the stats of FN, if production is high, I go with mineral, and if revenue is high, go with research, but pretty much every FN in primodia has lower revenue stat than production one.

I focused on building combos when installing my probes and it worked well so far.

So keep investing so that I don’t hit the limit (which I have increased twice by using Storage probes. Any suggestions?

That’s a few quests that request Miranium, but other than that I did the same and just kept feeding any I had left spare into the AMs. You get an extra use for it once you unlock mechs since they use if for fuel, but even then there should be plenty.

And can I sell all the low level stuff I have?

Probably? I haven’t seen any use for low-lever gear myself and I’m much farther into the game. The only reason I haven’t sold mine is because I didn’t need to since I have a dumb amount of money piled up from FrontiverNav income.

Playing Xenoblade X!

Finished Chapter 9!

A few days ago I decided to rush to get the Flying Module, and it worked mostly fine, with only the Chapter 9 boss being a roadblock - that one took me a few tries and even made me use some of the healing items I had stashed for the first time. Then I decided to satisfy my OCD and went flying around the world installing every single FrontierNav probe, so I now have the world fully mapped! 🎉

Currently doing a bunch of Affinity Quests that I had pending, will probably balance between these and trying to do at least one Story mission per day. I’d love to use the Easter holiday to finish this game so I can play something else during my trip abroad next week, but not sure if I’ll be able to do it.

Yep, it’s just like the Xbox 360 compatibility program.

While I do agree that anyone with a big collection should hold on to their Switch 1 until we get more updates and real-life testing, I don’t think this is a fair comparison - even now this looks massively better than anything MS did for backwards compatibility.

There are 462 games made backward compatible out of 989

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Xbox_games_compatible_with_Xbox_360

There are 632 games that have been made backward compatible out of 2,155

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_backward-compatible_games_for_Xbox_One_and_Series_X/S