Xenoblade

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Xenoblade 2 Rare Reactionaries Part 17


I warped back to Tora's house, which had absolutely no justification in story since the team had no way of traveling from the bottom of the Cloud Sea.  Nevertheless, now was the time to start the quest for the third Poppi form.  Tora's name for her?  Poppi QTpi!     With the Greek letter, not the English rendering. 


A cutscene in Mor Ardain's palace had a soldier tell Emperor Niall "Yesterday, we sealed Section 47".  Geothermal hot spots were appearing in the capital, indicating that the Titan was dying and that the empire should evacuate to Gormott.  But even Gormott's "harvests have been declining for years".  One minor character in Mor Ardain said that Gormott's temperature was rising at a slow rate as well earlier in the game.  Xenoblade 2's writing has many faults, but lack of foreshadowing is not one of them.


Lv 56 Soul-Eater Stanley was the first Unique of World Tree.  It was Toppled once shortly before ascended Pyra's Second Sun cast, and the one orb Chain Attack hit for 449,105.  Roc cast Electrofire Storm.  An Elemental Bomb knocked out both Rex and Nia and forced Mòrag to resurrect them.  Kora cast Thunder Gale, and the the Chain Attack hit for 443,966.  Soul-Eater Stanley's time of death was 05:03.


Lv 57 Malicious Dimitri attacked the party without warning, so at least this Unique fight was self-defense.  Boreas spewed a Volcanic Storm.  Rex and friends often Toppled Malicious Dimitri with Pyra's Anchor Shot.  An ascended Pyra Electrofire Storm followed by a 972,126 two orb Chain Attack sent Malicious Dimitri to critical HP, and it looked like Roc finished it off with one of his Arts at 04:21.


Mòrag awakened many spare Core Crystals until a new Rare Blade joined the Reactionaries:


Zenobia

Weapon:  Greataxe
Element:  Wind
Role:  ATK
Auto-Attack:  18
Block Rate:  10%
Critical Rate:  15%
Phys. Def.:  15%
Ether Defense:  15%
Strength:  23


Affinity Chart


Diabolic Zephyr:  +100% damage when at 30% HP or under
Adamantine Axe:  +100% damage to Toppled foes
Ascension Blade:  +60% damage to higher level enemies
Carnage:  +60% damage against boss or Unique
The Indomitable:  +20% damage to higher level enemies
Greatest Warrior:  +20% more damage for each enemy


Field Skills


Wind Mastery
Superstrength
Leaping


Zenobia is one of those Blades which takes considerable effort to reach its potential, but would be valuable for endgame quests.  Unlocking its Affinity Chart rings is easy enough:  complete short Merc Missions with Zenobia as the leader.  Upgrading the abilities, however, requires killing specific Uniques.  As far as I can tell, Uniques that are already dead don't count, like Soulhacker abilities in Xenoblade 3.  Xenoblade 2 must have started the trend of gravestone necromancy.


At this point I decided to postpone the story until at least seeing Poppi's last form.  The quest so far has been convoluted, and I'm not even done with it yet.  First, Rex had to purchase an item in Tantal (easy enough), find Ambler Stigmas in Land of Morytha (annoying), and collect Cubic Diamonds in Mor Ardain (off to the wiki!). 


Next, Fleecyflossy the Nopon teacher in Argentum Trade Guild ordered Poppi to pass several tests.  What this really meant was that the player and the other Blades had to do all the work.  The "forestry lesson" was a Lv 05 Forestry check that forced me to switch some Common Blades into the lineup to pass.  The first "observation class" was to identify which Nopon was the merchant.  The correct answer was Kalukalu, who said "Yo, friends.  Me is cool Nopon, name of Kalukalu".  Did this test make more sense in the original Japanese, or did players in Japan have to use the trial and error method too?


The next observation class was to say which Ardainian soldier made a pose, i.e. Beltran.  "Ancient civilization studies" was a simple Ancient Wisdom check.  Last was the real test:  a battle against a Lv 50 Torl Marrin flying aquatic monster.  Tora didn't even participate in this battle, so Poppi was in fact the "lazy modern youth" that Fleecyflossy despised.


Although the party was at Lv 57-62, Torl Marrin put up a better fight than Malicious Dimitri.  Wulfric stood in front of the blackboard while whipping up Sandstorm, Boreas spit a Volcanic Storm, and the 2 orb Chain Attack struck for 813,428 damage.  Pyra detonated Steam Explosion, Kora blew Thunder Gale, and Pyra activated another Steam Explosion before a 332,276 Chain Attack.  Torl Marrin's Lightning Storm jolted the party, and Boreas retaliated with Final Disaster.  The last Overkill Chain Attack was for 212,053 power.


Doing all of this still wasn't enough to finish the side quest for Poppi.  Rex had to place collectibles into the "charging device", and couldn't add them in bulk.  Instead, Rex started by adding 34 Digital Filaments one by one.  So much A button bashing. . .have game developers learned nothing since Trials of Mana on the Super Nintendo?  Screw Coils added more than 1% to the bar, but I'll have to return to World Tree to gather more.


In any other RPG, Tora would be a kind of gimmick joke character like Final Fantasy 9's Quina, and most players could safely ignore him.  But in Xenoblade 2, he's one of the main party members!  You get him well before more conventional characters like Zeke and Mòrag, and sometimes Mòrag is absent.  Or you get a dungeon where everyone is crippled except for Tora such as Spirit Crucible Elpys.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Xenoblade 2 Rare Reactionaries Part 18:  The Redemption of Tora


Rex finally converted Nia into her Blade form for the endgame to take advantage of his 50% damage Male Loincloth bonus for female Blades.  (Typing that felt dirty.  Xenoblade 2 must have been written and drawn by lonely men!  The other games aren't as bad about that.)  Nia's weapon was the Catalyst Scimitar, which felt a bit like a sword version of a Bitball.  Its moves were Saber Slash for HP Potions, Redemption for direct healing, Hydro Blast as a standard Knockback attack, and Water Flower with a chance to "annul defense".


One item that increased the percentage for High-Voltage Charging was the 50 Volt Battery acquired from the Merc Mission "Energy for Remodeling".  The requirements were 3 Humanoids, 2 Animals, and 2 Salvaging Mastery specialists.  While waiting for the dispatched Blades to return, Lv 58-63 Rex, Tora, and Nia tried to fight the Lv 54 Shika Rhoguls for Boreas's side quest.  They pureed the party two or three times before I gave up.  Even TNKs can do little to stop large flocks of birds.


A side quest in Argentum Trade Guild was about opening Bana's giant treasure chest.  Passing the Break Lock (Superstrength + Nopon Wisdom) check wasn't enough.  To get the clues needed to find the treasure, the party threatened Bana as he was running on a hamster wheel as punishment for his crimes. 


In Fonsett Village, the team visited the graveyard.  The ensuing Heart-to-Heart with Pyra leveled her Purifying Flames ability to 3.  To activate this Heart-to-Heart, I had to stay at Corinne's inn, so I raised everyone else's level to 63 to match Rex.


PoppiQtpi awakened after lightning caused a blackout in Tora's house.  She thought Tora's legs were too short, so it would be more efficient if she carried him around by force.  "Tora is not little teddy bear!"  The humiliation of Tora would have been worth the effort needed to complete the side quest, but PoppiQTpi turned Tora from a mediocre combatant into a staple of the party:


PoppiQTpi


Weapon:  Variable Saber
Element:  Ice
Role:  ATK
Auto-Attack:  18
Block Rate:  10%
Critical Rate:  15%
Phys. Def.:  5%
Ether Defense:  0%
Strength:  12


Affinity Chart


Poppi Ignition:  Depends on Poppiswap
Noponic Axiom:  Depends on Poppiswap
Poppi Unlimited:  Depends on Poppiswap
Reflection:  5% chance to reflect attacks
Nanomachine Repair:  Heals 0.6% HP per second when HP is 30% or lower
Overclock:  +60% damage at max Affinity


Field Skills


Keen Eye
Ancient Wisdom
Forestry


Notice how all of PoppiQTpi's Field Skills are based on Fleecyflossy's education.  Overclock is obviously the best passive here.  Ice element is most useful if you have Wind element on your team for Blade Combos and Wind orb breaking.  However, the real benefit of this form is the Variable Saber, whose Arts make easy Driver Combos:


Swooshing Slash:  Inflicts Launch
Speedy Sword:  Inflicts Break
Boom-Boom Laser:  Damage bonus to Toppled foes
Steady Beam:  Heals percentage of damage dealt when Driver Art hits


All she lacks is Topple, and Poppi Alpha has that in her moveset.  Her default Role CPU is Muscle Mod II.  For simplicity's sake, I may refer to the forms as Poppi 1, 2, and 3 from here on out.  Poppi 3 was effective in a regular battle in World Tree even without Tiger Tiger bonuses.  I'll play that minigame at the start of the next session to see what new parts are available.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Xenoblade 2 Rare Reactionaries Part 19


Tiger Tiger had several rewards for Poppi's forms.  I never used the Elemental Core Dark, but Poppi 3 upgraded to Muscle Mod III, Machine Hunter V, AC Critical Up III, and Specials Lv 4 Plus III.  Don't ordinarily like equipping items that are specific to one enemy family, but most of Chapter 8's enemies were robots.  Poppi 1 got Life Drain V to restore 50% HP when a foe died.  Poppi 3 and Pyra equipped the two Mirror Matter Chips that were available for dramatic Auto-Attack and Critical Rate increases.  Poppi 3's version gave +10% Phys. Def., and Pyra's version countered attacks with 150% physical power.


Rex added Pandoria to his lineup for the Electric element and ATK role, since it seemed Nia was better off as a Driver.  Blade Nia is probably worth using, but you'd have to commit to that build soon after she becomes available.  A fight with many robots including a Blade Virus (Blade Affinity Down) casting Lv 59 Margot Sovereign was difficult for the team, and required a Chain Attack, two casts of Pyra's Steam Explosion, Boreas's Volcanic Storm, and Pandoria's Lightning Quake.  I was playing as Tora at the time for variety's sake, so no ascended Pyra came to the rescue.  Once the battle had ended, Rex could drain the water in Nuclear Dump Facility. 


(Tora once swam in Nuclear Dump Facility when I was controlling him, but surprisingly the water wasn't radioactive or poisonous.  Maybe so much time had passed that all the uranium had decayed?)


Rex's best line taken out of context in a conversation with Tora?  "Hey. . .Why are you so interested in my finances all of a sudden?"


A flashback showed Amalthus's mother shoving him out of the way of soldiers who eventually killed her.  Indol flew up to the World Tree and started shooting lasers at the flying Torna warship Marsanes containing Akhos, Patroka, Mikhail, Jin, and Malos.  Blade Bots were sent to counter Indol's dragons.  A message in the next gameplay segment said "Indol is now a hostile power", which banned the party from participating in any more Indol quests.  All Indol Merc Missions and Dev Ooints were transferred to Leftheria, raising Rex's homeland to 5* Development Level.


Lv 64 Mk. VI Margot was the next Unique, and it flew in the way of the keycard unlocking the next elevator.  Pyra cast Steam Explosion, and a Lv 55 Radclyffe Sovereign failed to Self-Destruct against the party.  The first Chain Attack hit for 200,425.  Boreas cast Electrofire Storm.  The team had to watch out for Blade Virus interfering with their Affinity, but this didn't stop another Pyra Steam Explosion followed by a 516,392 Chain Attack. Once Mk. VI Margot died at 05:28, the party had to fight. . .Enchanted Motorcycles from Progress Quest!  They were really called Familion Sovereigns, and had a tendency to use Assault Wheelie. 


A control panel saying "PLEASE ENTER PASSWORD" would remain a mystery to Rex, but he would keep ascending and watching cutscenes.  After one death to a horde of robots, Tora equipped a Phantom Feather (start combat with high aggro) so everyone wouldn't bludgeon Rex to death and cause a Game Over.  Xenoblade games are lenient when it comes to death and just send you back to the last fast travel point, but I call it a Game Over for tradition's sake.


Lv 58 Haywire Radclyffe was one of the fastest Unique fights.  My main concern was that its Self-Destruct would deal damage based on its remaining HP or something and kill everyone in one blast.  Poppi 2 cast Steam Explosion, and a Chain Attack hit for 549,623.  Haywire Radclyffe's Self-Destruct did nothing more than exhaust most of its remaining HP, and the battle was won at 01:41.


Nia asked her fellow Blades if they wanted to live for a long time after their Driver died.  Since she was a Flesh Eater anyway, the question itself was irrelevant to her.  None of the Blades wanted to outlive their closest companions.  A viewpoint called 7th Perimeter Entrance had a nice background of the Torna group shooting at Indol.  At this point, I've played Xenoblade 2 longer than the entirety of Dragon Quest 11, and that includes the postgame as big as a smaller RPG.


In a flashback cutscene, it was suggested that there was a previous Praetor before Amalthus, since Malos congratulated him sarcastically about his promotion.  Malos said he had "full control of all my powers" and didn't need Amalthus anymore.  Malos hated all humans, including those from the Praetorium:  "Humans aren't fit to breathe our air".  Malos told Amalthus that he couldn't control Mythra's Core, and so Amalthus was going to look for a suitable Driver for his vengeance.  (i.e. Addam)


Just in case you didn't realize he was the villain, the game provided a closeup of Amalthus with an evil grin.  What passed for a boss fight at the end of Chapter 8 was a group of "Indoline warrior monks".  They seriously thought they could defeat the Aegis and capture her.  "We don't negotiate holy decrees".  "If you don't comply, then prepare for righteous chastisement!"


The Lv 57 Indoline Loyalists and Lv 60 Indoline Star were trivial to defeat with Pyra's ascended form.  Ascended Pyra is so much better than other Blades that you're holding back if you control any character aside from Rex.  The only full Blade Combo in the whole fight was a Dead of Winter from ascended Pyra.


Hologram Space Pope appeared in front of the party, and the real Amalthus disabled their Blades using Fan la Norne's Core Crystal in his forehead.  But Flesh Eaters had a partial resistance to the effect because they were "half-breeds" as Malos put it.  Xenoblade 1 had a similar theme of genetic diversity being necessary when half-High Entia such as Melia were immune to being forcibly transformed into Telethia monsters.


Amalthus still had more tricks to use against the Torna terrorists and the party.  He could also control continent Titans, and Mor Ardain shot at Rex.  Chapter 9 began with the revelation that the Mor Ardain laser missed.  A flashback showed Amalthus killing a man who was about to kill an orphan baby, and he shouted:  "O Architect!  Is this the world that you intended?" 


Xenoblade 2 started with environmental and civilization decline themes, and now it's theodicy.  Stripped of metaphors, the plot may go like this:  "Global warming is the Pope's fault!"  People used to credit or blame Protestants for capitalism and industrialism (blah blah blah Max Weber), but Japanese video game writers haven't heard of any form of Christianity besides Catholicism. 


Uraya and Tantal also joined the Titan assault against Marsanes.  None of the "rulers" of those countries could do anything about it, although Emperor Niall ordered an evacuation of Mor Ardain since that Titan was about to die.  Marsanes transformed into a giant robot because it wouldn't be a Xenoblade game without those.  All of the Torna terrorists except for Mikhail had already left for the World Tree, and Mikhail wanted to serve as a distraction and fight Indol directly.  Zeke used the term Blade Eater as a joke before, but it was the official name for the condition Mikhail and Amalthus were in.  Mikhail had become a Blade Eater as one of the refugees who survived Amalthus's genocide.


Rex and Pyra had the idea to stop the "pillars" on the Titans that Amalthus was using to control them.  Tora had a decent plan for once:  use Poppi to take Rex and Pyra to the right spot!  In an earlier scene, Nia confirmed her status as best character in the story when she scolded Tora for his lack of imagination regarding people's motives:  "Every time with you it's 'have you lost your wallet?' or are you hungry?"  No wonder she became the Queen of Agnus in the sequel.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Xenoblade 2 Rare Reactionaries Part 20


Nia awakened a spare Legendary Core Crystal just to see what was inside:


Gorg


Weapon:  Greataxe
Element:  Water
Role:  ATK
Auto-Attack:  18
Block Rate:  10%
Critical Rate:  15%
Phys. Def.:  25%
Ether Defense:  20%
Strength:  17


Affinity Chart

Innocent Teardrop:  +60 Affinity when casting this Special
Bittersweet Dreams:  -20% aggro when this hits
Leave Me Alone:  +100% damage to Toppled foes
FTL:  -10% party damage taken at max Affinity
IMD:  +5% Phys. Def.
FAS:  +40% damage to aquatic foes


Field Skills


Keen Eye
Fortitude
Patissier


Gorg would only be used for Merc Missions because the main party was established by now, and an extra Water Blade was redundant when Nia already had Dromarch.  Lv 66 Haywire Phoebus the robot literally came out of a closet and attacked the party.  Boreas spit Volcanic Storm and ascended Pyra doused it with Splash Hazard.  Splash Hazard dealt so much damage that the Chain Attack was mostly Overkill with 1,358,303 damage.  Haywire Phoebus was deactivated at 02:37.


By World Tree, Xenoblade 2 battles had become imbalanced.  Either Rex lived long enough to transform Pyra and obliterate the enemies and bosses, or a mob of enemies would mulch him.  Lv 65 Praetorian Argus the dragon swooped down on the team after Rex had performed his final salvage.  Rex wasn't going to surrender his two treasure chests without a fight!  Boreas cast Volcanic Storm, Poppi 3 refrigerated it with Diamond Mist, and Kora blew Thunder Gale.  The resulting Chain Attack struck for 2,589,043 damage and slew Praetorian Argus at 03:06.


Rex had no business fighting Lv 66 Praetorian Medea, even though his team was one level lower at the time.  The reason for this was its legion of Lv 57 Indoline Loyalists.  After a defeat, I knew the only way to to proceed was to dash to the next cutscene.  Poppi sent Rex and Pyra to destroy the amplifying pillar Amalthus was using to control the continent Titans, while Mikhail and Marsanes fought the Indol Titan until the Torna ship was destroyed.


To pass a Supply Power (Electric Mastery + Focus) check, Zeke on the bench swapped one Electric Common Blade into his lineup, then removed it immediately after.  For the rest of the session, there would be occasional flashbacks of Zeke talking to Amalthus.  Zeke regarded anyone who had to kill other humans as weak in spirit.  When Zeke asked Rex how he felt about humans and the party, he stated it in such an ambiguous manner that Nia had this to say:  "Ah!  I think Shellhead's about to propose".  Part of Rex's answer was "I like myself, and I'm people". 


Another flashback showed an old man telling Jin that he was "Omelia's former Blade" 90 years before the Aegis War, and that his house was still standing.  Jin went to the abandoned house and read his previous incarnation's diary.  Lv 66 Jin himself was an anticlimax like most battles where Rex wasn't overwhelmed immediately.  Poppi 2 launched Steam Explosion, ascended Pyra summoned Diamond Mist, and the final Chain Attack hit for 1,031,875 damage.


Jin said that the ascended Aegis's power to "manifest what you imagine" (i.e. can cast any element) belonged to the Architect, and asked why Rex would use it to help mortals.  He thought that if humans gained the power to enter Elysium, they would repeat the same mistakes that destroyed the city of Morytha.  Nia tried to heal Jin temporarily as Akhos and Patroka were going to take him away.  Amalthus entered the World Tree and explained the real reason for his "purification" ritual that was allegedly meant to make it easier for Drivers to activate Blades.  Amalthus instead was using his Blade Eater powers to steal the cores for himself.


Akhos shot an arrow at Amalthus, but Amalthus strangled him with his new energy tentacles.  The ensuing fight against the villain was. . .another anticlimax.  Amalthus started by defending himself with Divine Robes.  His main attacks were Guilty Road and Thousand Tentacles, which weren't strong enough to overpower Nia's healing.  Boreas tilted the Alrest axis with Dead of Winter, Poppi 2 shot Mega Explosion, and Kora called a Thunder Gale storm.  Amalthus temporarily became Invincible, but it didn't last long.  The Overkill Chain Attack humbled Amalthus with 1,794,028 damage.  
 

Jin used the last of his Ice powers to kill both Amalthus and himself.  Amalthus saw a vision of his mother just before perishing, though he asked why the Architect wasn't answering him.  And so Chapter 9 ended.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Xenoblade 2 Rare Reactionaries FINALE


In the Year 20XX, while X was fighting Sigma, scientists were panicking about an attack on First Low Orbit Station:  Rhadamanthus on top of a space elevator (?) called The Beanstalk.  Considering Tetsuya Takahashi's love of religious symbolism, you'd think he'd have named it Jacob's Ladder, or maybe the Tower of Babel.  The attack was carried out by "Saviorite rebels", which the game never explains.  Aion, the Artifice Malos was planning to use, existed at this time, and the scientists hoped to use the giant robot to stop the rebels. 


Professor Klaus, however, activated the Conduit needed to power Aion for his own purposes.  Lines familiar from Xenoblade 1's ending started to play about how only a god could create a new universe until Klaus discovered the Conduit.  Klaus thought the Conduit was "a gift from some divine entity", while Galea insisted the Conduit was a "meta-universe manifold".  The technobabble hypothesis sounded less plausible than the religious one.  Klaus used the Conduit, and it seemed the Earth exploded. . .


At the start of Chapter 10, a new Special was available.  I never used this attack because it required both Pyra and Nia to be equipped as Blades on Rex, and they would both have to build their Specials up to tier IV.  Besides, Rex was already the most powerful character in the Xenoblade series without having to add more!


Malos's original name was Logos.  Whether Takahashi intended for players to think of the Gospel of John or earlier Greek philosophy is unknown.  The Architect said "It has no meaning.  All it represents is the ego of those who named you".  He also stated "I am fading.  I'll be gone. . .soon enough. . .", indicating that Malos did not need to waste the effort to kill him.


The green meadows of Elysium were a lie.  The real Elysium in First Low Orbit Station was a desert of ruined buildings, dilapidated concrete bridges, and an abandoned playground.  No enemies were here, and all Rex had to do was to run toward the church.  According to Mòrag, all of Alrest's people could have fit in Elysium, so the global population must have been very low.


Inside Old Temple, Rex was alone and had to fight the other party members, or rather the secret resentments they had against him.  Lv 68 Nia defeated Rex with an Aqua Wave.  The game had forced two Common Blades named Tomae and Sakon into the lineup, and Wulfric was the only Rare Blade eligible to fight.  Once Rex was kicked back to Old Temple, he could equip the Blades he needed:  Nim, Roc, and Wulfric.  Nim's tier I Special healed Rex, and a Gaia Crash (Earth + Earth) gouged Nia.  Lv 68 Mòrag was next, and she also defeated Rex on Take 1.  Nim equipped the Aux Cores Physical Defense Up III and Damage Heal III, which may have made the difference.


Lv 68 Tora and Zeke fought against Rex simultaneously, and Tora defended against many of Rex's Arts.  I replaced Roc with the more defensive Finch and taught Rex how to use his B button Art at the start of fights via the Affinity Chart.  He also equipped the Ceramic Belt for +32% Strength, and Roc's sole Aux Core went to Physical Defense Up II.  (Rare Blades can have 1-3 Aux Core slots.)  Iron Wall healed Rex, while a Cyclone blew Tora away.  Previously, Rex beat up Zeke with Nim's punches.


Gramps preferred to give Rex an existential crisis in his vision, and wondered if Rex would live the same way if he had to "exist for close to an eternity, with no clear purpose or goal".  Next was Pyra and Mythra in "Fonsett Village", with Mythra being uncharacteristically nice to Rex.  Klaus, aka the Architect, was the source of these visions, and he wanted to know how the party dealt with their fears and "alternate possibilities".


Klaus stated that many parallel universes existed, but were ignorant of each other.  The Conduit was a portal between these universes.  The city of Morytha under the Cloud Sea was what remained of Earth.  Much of Earth was flung into different universes, rather than being annihilated outright.  Klaus's right half was in Xenoblade 2, while his left half looked like a black hole, since it was in another universe.  Klaus wanted to die after he realized his mistake, but couldn't.  So instead he created Alrest.  The Cloud Sea was a "special particularate substance with the ability to restore deteriorated matter", which meant taking apart matter and rebuilding it as life similar to Earth's.  A Metal Gear game would have just said "nanomachines".  Yet swimming in the Cloud Sea is much safer than it should be based on the description.



The Core Crystals were "miniature vessels containing memories of all this planet's former lifeforms".  When they fell into the Cloud Sea, they created the first Titans.  After "untold millennia", humans evolved again.  The Blades were intended to be a failsafe in case another person like Klaus would devastate the world again.  Three Aegises were created:  Ontos, Logos, and Pneuma.  Ontos disappeared during a "space-time transition event" and was never seen again.  Logos was Malos as mentioned earlier, and Pneuma was Pyra + Mythra.  The Blades would gather information for Klaus and the Aegises.  Before Klaus used them to make Titans and Blades, Core Crystals were part of a failed experiment as a substitute for human brain cells.  The result was the Guldo species of monster.


Klaus had given up hope that humanity would learn from its errors 500 years ago, and therefore let Amalthus take the Aegis Core Crystals without resistance.  When Klaus asked what Rex would do with Malos, he appealed to the Salvager's Code:  "First have a punch-out, then drink to forget.  Once you've forgotten, the friendship's all set!"  The Salvager's Code in general resembles the Dwarven Vows from Tales of Symphonia.  Rex and Lloyd have similar enough personalities that they'd be best friends if they met each other.


Malos ordered his Artifice robots to shoot all the cities of Alrest from orbit.  The "final dungeon" was a long corridor toward the hangar filled with Artifice Colossus robots in the upper 60s level range.  Our heroes needed their Blade Combos and ascended Pyra tricks to get past them, since they killed the party multiple times.  Rex and friends used the last of their bonus experience to grow to Lv 71-73.  Rex was actually the lowest level character.  Just before the final boss, the last regular enemies were. . .Drub Sovereign motorcycles!


Malos climbed inside Lv 70 Artifice Aion to start the fight.  This was officially the weakest final boss in the Xenoblade series, though it took several attempts to win.  (They weren't just deaths:  the game froze once.)  The second phase of the battle activated once the party hacked off about a quarter of Artifice Aion's health bar, and restored the Party Gauge.  They counted as two separate fights in the code, so ascended Pyra could be used in both.  The first attempt came very close to victory, only for Rex to die to Flame Gear once Nia and Tora died suddenly.


For brevity's sake, I'll just post the victory.  In the 1st phase, Boreas caused Final Disaster, Kora slammed the ground with Lightning Quake, and the Chain Attack that triggered the 2nd phase dealt 615,116 damage.  In the 2nd phase, Artifice Aion killed Rex as it always did with Siren Buster, though the Party Gauge was high enough that he could be revived.  Kora zapped the robot with Thunder Gale, Roc changed the weather to Dead of Winter, Wulfric used Mega Eruption geothermal power, and ascended Pyra drowned Malos's mech with Splash Hazard.  The final Chain Attack of the game was also the only Full Burst due to smashing so many orbs.  Tora and Poppi 2 were the true heroes , and pulverized Artifice Aion with 2,481,914 damage.  I knew the only way for me to win was to build up as many element orbs as possible and wiping out Artifice Aion's HP with one big Chain Attack.


Malos was happy when he died, and Rex wondered if Malos would have had less despair if he were the Driver instead of Amalthus.  Malos was a load-bearing final boss in RPG tradition, and Pyra seemed to sacrifice herself to destroy the World Tree with Aion before it could rain debris on Alrest.  Rex and friends escaped on a spaceship, though the ship was destroyed on the way down.  Pyra had fortunately activated Gramps's Core Crystal, and so he became a dragon again just in time to catch the falling heroes.  Klaus's last act of repentance was to cause all the continent Titans to merge into a new continent.  Pyra's Core Crystal reactivated, and Pyra and Mythra were resurrected as separate bodies.  All was well.


Xenoblade 2 doesn't spell this out if you play it as a standalone game, but it takes place at exactly the same time as Xenoblade 1.  The Architect is the more benevolent side of Klaus, while his evil half became Zanza from the first game.  Galea is Meyneth, though there's no version of her in Alrest.  Shulk's line about killing a god can be heard from the Architect's black hole, and the Architect also died when Zanza was defeated with the Monado III.


Xenoblade 2 is a fun game once you comprehend the battle system and get far enough where you can use three Blades per character.  Many players complain that it's too slow, and that is true if you are early in the story or fail to understand the unintuitive mechanics.  It's actually the fastest-paced combat in the series if you have a reasonably strong setup.  It can be a hard game to like when it has:  questionable art design, a map that doesn't account for 3D spaces, bad acting, the Rare Blade lottery, unfunny comic relief.  (Tora's voice could be used as a torture device!)  Xenoblade 3 is the game I'd recommend most, and 1 is also better if you don't mind skipping the more tedious side quests.


As for the Rare Reactionary "challenge", it felt more like a normal playthrough than a variant, but I gave it the name because it was a contrast with the Peasant Revolt.  Still died many times despite the game lacking a Xenoblade 3 style Hard difficulty or an Expert Mode level restriction like the Switch version of Xenoblade 1.

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

Xenoblade 2 Rare Reactionaries BONUS


The sendoff to the Xenoblade 2 playthrough was the restoration of Boreas's food stash.  Had to do something nice for the most useful non-mandatory Blade!  At Lv 74-75, Rex and friends plucked the Lv 54 Shika Rhogul birds in Leftheria and got the Shimmering Feather.  Yumyum the Burglar decided it didn't really count as a victory, and ordered the party to steal "Emperor Niall's unmentionables".  His justification was that the stakes would be life in prison or death if they got caught.  Yumyum tried to bribe the Ardainian guards with a mere 3000 gold, but they were incorruptible.  Boreas failed the Fleet of Foot check, but effectively passed the challenge anyway.


Yumyum the Burglar's final challenge was to steal the Bloomshroom from the Bastion of Varrac in Temperantia, "jealously guarded as a holy relic by Ignas".  The tricky part was reaching the Bastion of Varrac in the first place. Toxbloom Spring was filled with poisonous water that could kill the party in seconds regardless of level.  I had to look at the map closely to find a viable route.


A Unique lizard called Lv 58 Atrocious Hermes guarded the Bloomshroom treasure chest.  Rex equipped Nia as a Blade for novelty's sake, and also had Boreas since it was required for the quest.  Tora and Mòrag were the other party members.  Atrocious Hermes was Toppled and even Launched, before its corpse reached absolute zero temperature with ascended Pyra's Frost Typhoon at 01:22.  The Open Container check for the treasure chest was intentionally impossible, since no Blade lineup could reach skill Lv 99.  Yumyum opened the chest instead.


Tora was skeptical about the value of the Bloomshroom, but Rumtumtum the cook in Argentum Trade Guild said that it went extinct over 100 years before, and that it could grow to immense size when sprayed with water.  Of course, the Nopon in the conversation said it in an annoyingly cutesy way.  Riku from Xenoblade 3 is the best Nopon in the series because his serious voice is such a contrast from the others.  Boreas enjoyed eating the Bloomshroom, and knocked Yumyum off a tall ledge when the Nopon was talking too much.


The result of all that effort, besides the usual quest rewards?  Boreas's final point in Nopon Wisdom.  Why didn't he pass the Fleet of Foot check?  It required 9800 Trust.  I'd used Boreas for most of the game, and the total Trust score was 8531.  And that's why you never try to go for 100% completion in a Monolith Soft game, kids.