Xenoblade Chronicles X: scans and lots of details from the Dengeki Nintendo guide

21 April 2015 Lite_Agent Dengeki Nintendo, Monolith Software, Nintendo, Wii U, Xenoblade Chronicles X

The latest issue of Dengeki Nintendo came out today in Japan, and it comes with a special “Xenoblade Chronicles X Fast Guide – Exploratory handbook”. Thanks to kuroneko0509, we have full scans of the guide book, along with lots of translated details courtesy of Gessenkou.

Exploration

During your exploration of Planet Mira, you will be able to find the nests of native creatures, but also some wreckages of the White Whale (one of the ships on which Humanity escaped from Earth, which crashed on Planet Mira). You can get some items from them, but you need the appropriate Field Skill before you can do so.

As for the Collectopedia, it has various lists for each of the continent of Planet Mira. Complete those and you will be able to get some special rewards. Apparently, some of the items only appear at a certain time of the day, and under certain weather conditions.

When exploring Planet Mira, you will get to meet lots of different creatures, but you’ll have to be very careful. After all, some of them can hide themselves in the foliage, and take you by surprise. There’s even some creatures, in the Valley of Oblivion, which can use camouflage.

The reaction types of enemies / monsters (sight, proximity, sound) change depending on the time of the day. But unlike Xenoblade Chronicles, Xenoblade Chronicles X doesn’t let you change the time at will: you can only do so at rest points (B.L.A.DE. tents in the field, red benches in NLA, etc.). As for the weather, it changes every time you use Skip Travel.

Areas

In total, there’s seven kind of areas you can discover, and each of them give you a different rewards:

– Zones: vast regions; give you no rewards.
– Landmarks: notable places; give you inner XP and Battle Points.
– Areas: they’re spread throughout the zones; give you Inner XP.
– Unexplored Regions: hidden areas; give you large amounts of Inner XP.
– Superb Views: give you large amounts of Inner XP.
– Base Camps: give Battle Points.
– Frontier Net Spots: where you set up Data Probes; give you Battle Points and Inner XP.

If the Data Probe next to a Superb View or Unexplored Region is a Research Probe, it gives it some tourism value (allowing you to get some money from tourism in that area).

Regions

One of the regions of the game is called the Valley of Oblivion: make sure you don’t fall into the huge ravine there, as it will be the last thing you do before dying. When exploring this region, you also need to be careful and avoid the lightning strikes: if you’re outdoors, you’ll keep getting damage until you go take cover in a cave or indoors. Alternatively, you can negate damage with a high Bolt resistance.

One the areas of the game is called the Land of White Ash, and you can see wonderful auroras in the sky there, at night.

As for the Land of Black Steel, it is home to various alien bases, along with a pipe extending far underground. There’s also alien bases in the Twilluminous Forest.

Quests

There’s an insane amount of quests in the game (many more than in Xenoblade Chronicles). There’s various kinds of quests in the game:

– Story Quests: certain conditions need to be met before you can take those. Some of the requirements include “clearing a particular quest,” “meeting inner level requirements,” “using specific party members,” or even “meeting an exploration rate on a specific continent.” Some of them require that a specific “Kizuna Quest” is completed beforehand, or that the affinity between some of the characters has reached a certain level.

Some of the Story Quests involve various characters from NLA, and not just the main characters. NB: Story Quests cannot be cancelled.

– Kizuna Quests: those have an impact on the affinity of the characters. Many involve the other main characters (such as Elma or Lynn). You can’t take one if you’re already doing a Story Quest, and vice-versa. There’s special talks that increase the affinity between characters. Kizuna Quests cannot be cancelled, and they prevent you from removing certain characters from your party once you’ve accepted one (until you’ve completed it, obviously).

Thanks to the Kizunagram, you can see the affinity level between characters, but also which Arts they known.

– Normal Quests: you get those from citizens and other characters with a ? above their head. You can actually see those on the minimap if you’re close to them (just like in Xenoblade Chronicles). Unfortunately, they’re hard to find on the field (… just like in Xenoblade Chronicles !), and some of them are pretty hard to find and/or reach. Apparently, there’s quests hidden inside containers or within vehicles!

– Simple Quest: you get those from the notice board in the B.L.A.D.E. Home Area, and you can only take up to 20 at a time. The quests listed on the notice board change every time you check it. The difficulty level is indicated via some stars, and the game also tells you the recommended level to complete the quests. There’s actually several hundreds of them!

Here’s the three kinds of Simple Quests:

– Subjugation: you need to kill the designated creatures or Overeds. NB: the target level does not include the enemies found along the way.
– Collection: you need to collect the designated item. If you already have it, you don’t have to do anything and the quest is auto-completed right away. You can check which items you still need (if you don’t have them all) on the details screen.
– Talk: simple quests where you simply need to go talk to some people. Apparently, some additional quests can spring forth from those, including Kizuna quests. If you like sub-stories, you’re going to love those!

Once you’ve taken a quest, you can see its details on the screen. You can easily find your goal thanks to a marker on the mini-map.

An important thing to note about Story Quests: they unlock new areas and systems (such as Dolls or the OverClock Gear). Therefore, it’s recommended to avoid focusing too much on the various sidequests and neglect the story.

Network Mode

Using Network Mode, you can hire the avatar of other players via the B.L.A.D.E. Scout Console. You need to pay for those (using the in-game currency), along with an extra fee if the scout is of a higher level than you.

Classes, experience points, arts, weapons

When your reach level 10 within a class, you can change to a higher level class. The weapons you can equip depend on the “route” you chose, and those can change dramatically according to your choices. If you manage to reach level 10 of a top-tier class, you’ll be able to keep using the weapons of that class even if you change afterwards. To get Class XP, you need to kill enemies in battle (the amount of said XP depends on their level).

There’s various ways to get Inner Experience Points in the game:

– in battles (depends on how powerful the enemy is. If a monster is much stronger than you, you’ll get more XP than with an enemy weaker than you);
– clearing quests;
– finding landmarks, Frontier Net spots, and various other things while exploring.

To level up Arts and Skills, you need Battle Points. For example, you need 100BP to level up an Art to its max level (which is Level 5). Here’s the various aspects improved when you level up Arts:

– Recast Time
– Melee/Ranged Multiplier
– Buffs/Debuffs effects
– Buffs/Debuffs duration
– Special Conditions

An important aspect of Weapons and Skills: they have an impact on the amount of Tension Points you can get. For example, one skill allows you to get TP when you take damage from the weather. But what are TP for, exactly? Well, they can be used for various actions, such as helping an incapped teammate (requires 3000 TP), but generally they’re for using Tension Arts (1000TP each).

The various playable characters (with the exception of the MC) have two unique Arts. For example, Elma knows “Ghost Stage”, which allows her to grant a special buff to allies, so they can avoid a fixed number of attacks.

Unions

To increase your B.L.A.D.E. level, you need to get some Union Points (see blow how to get them). Everytime you do so, you can chose to upgrade one of your three Field Skills:

– Mechanical: you need it in order to set up data probes and open treasure boxes requiring Mechanical skills. It’s recommended to upgrade this one as soon as possible.
– Biological: you need it to examine Biological-type treasure boxes. They’re the “nests” mentionned in the Exploration section. Basically, they’re things like dung and anthills, and they don’t look like actual boxes (at all).
– Search: when aliens abandon their Dolls, they become “treasure boxes”. You need the Search skill to open them and get what’s inside. Dolls abandoned by aliens become treasure boxes. There’s lots of them in remote areas like tall cliffs.

You can get Union Points by:

– defeating native creatures;
– defeating Overeds (powerful creatures, with their own name on the field);
– collecting items;
– opening treasure boxes;
– setting up data probes;
– and more…

The amount of Union Points you get depend on the Union you’re in.

Dolls

Thanks to their great jumping capabilities, you will be able to take shortcut thanks to the Dolls (the mechas). As for their “Catch” feature, it allows you to immobilise enemies for up to 10 seconds. You can use one when you’ve acquired a licence, but there’s a catch: you can’t ride Dolls with a frame of a higher level than your higher level.

Actions

If you jump while dashing, you will be able to cover a greater distance and go higher with your jumps. This allows you to go on top of rocks and avoid enemies. Obviously, you can’t keep on dashing forever, and you slip a bit when you stop. Be careful, because slipping can make you fall or get spotted by an enemy.

That being said, you can also get a bit crazy because you don’t take any damage when you fall from a high place. Also, you’re never really penalised when you die. And good news: you can also jump and/or dash during battles, which will be useful to avoid enemy attacks.

During battles, you can topple enemies. When they’re toppled, they can’t move at all, and all your attacks on them do 1.5x more damage. Also, your accuracy is pretty much 100% and your hits won’t miss.

Another way to increase the amount of damage you deal to enemies is to break some of their parts, as the exposed areas are weaker. You can get various effects by destroying various parts, and in order to get what you want, you can tell your allies to focus on one specific area via the Battle Menu.

As for the OverClock Gear, it raises the Gear Counter, and to get bonuses, it’s better to use Arts hitting enemies a lot of times. Here’s some examples of Gear Counter effects:

– Gear time extension;
– Damage increased;
– Decrease enemy debuff resistances;
– Get some TP back with attacks;
– Recast times shortened.

Soul Voice

During battles, you can get Soul Challenges. Those are activated when you press the B button at the right time when the circle appears on the screen. When you complete one, the affinity between the characters is increased, and the Soul Stage level goes up by one . Higher Soul Stages nets you some TP (Tension Points) when you hit perfects on the challenges, and the Soul Activation rate is increased.

If you fail a challenge, the Soul Stage level decreases; it’s reset if you get KO’d. An important thing to note: you can get Soul Challenges easily if you do critical hits. You can also increase your chances of getting one by starting a battle with an Art instead of an auto-attack.

When you complete a Soul Challenge, you can get various bonuses… and you can even chose which ones! Here’s some examples:

– “dmg+100%/200% from back”
– “each hit+100TP”
– “Recast Time reduced by 50%”

Misc

Finally, some details from the Dengeki Online review published this morning. Apparently, it’s possible to basically re-do your character once you’ve cleared a certain quest in the game. As for exploration, it’s quite seamless: there’s basically no loading times when you’re exploring on foot or on-board your Doll. However, if you use the Skip Travel feature to and from your home base, you will get short loading times.

Here’s the scans of the “Xenoblade Chronicles X Fast Guide – Exploratory handbook”, courtesy of kuroneko0509: