Xenoblade Chronicles... reason enough to keep the Wii? - Page 4

Wow, I actually hit a wall where I am underleveled and the only quests that give me exp worth anything are beyond my ability (unique enemies with op abilities) and the only enemies I can fight and get decent exp are in one small cluster in one room right before a majorly annoying boss mob (burn and paralasis within seconds on everyone) I just spent about 6 hours exploring, finishing quests and only gained 3 levels...

About what part of the game are you at? After about the marsh I found it way too easy to get overleveled. Did you get the "more XP from quests" skill on Shulk's skill tree? Also, once you raise affinity with a town, you can get additional, more lucrative quests from them. I think after you get Colony 9 to 3-4 stars you can get some quests with bigger rewards, including a new skill tree for Shulk.

I'm contemplating soft-modding my Wii to keep playing this game, but at an initial glance it seems pretty intimidating to someone of my limited intelligence, as relatively easy as the process may be these days. I did look up some local repair shops, who could fix it for around $50 if it is just a laser problem. Or I could also borrow another brother's Wii, though I'm not sure I could take it mentally if his is also broken. Ugh. Stuff to consider.

I'm sorry to hijack this thread with this stuff, but man, I think it's kinda ****ed that me and my three brothers all have Wiis, and at least three of them are now broken. Surprisingly my launch Wii lasted the longest, although my first brother also had a launch console and his borked almost two years ago. (I wonder if it's coincidence that I'm the only one to have long ago turned off Wii Connect 24.) On top of that my PS3 semi-regularly freezes, which has been making me nervous for quite a while. Meanwhile I still have a working SNES, N64, Gamecube, and hell, original Gameboy. Guess the days of hardware that sturdy are gone.

I'm at the fort, I can't say more without massive spoilers. I am level 55.

And towns have affinity! Crap, yet another layer to explore. Heck, I accidentally found one fourth skill set... So much depth to this game, I will be doing a new game + for sure.

Hm, I think that's right before where I was before my Wii exploded. I don't remember a boss that did burn/paralysis there, though. There was one guy who kept decimating until I realized he was causing spike damage. Anyway, definitely search around the forest and sea cities for quests, there are TONS in each. And you've been hunting down landmarks and locations, right? Those give lots of XP.

The sea area in particular is fulfilling to explore, because you can get real high up, spot an unmapped island in the distance, and swim off to reach it. I can think of at least three secret locations that will give XP for finding them, and also each contain at least one high-XP unique monster.

Explain?

Appears as if his disc drive went up on his Wii. Soft modding a Wii allows you to play Wii software from a USB hard drive or memory stick, among other capabilities.

So he could just play a disc image of the game instead of paying to have the disc drive replaced.

The sea area is one I still need to explore, the rest I have found pretty much everything in. (gathered quests from the nearby city beforehand to kill two birds at once)

Gotcha. Thanks.

Finally made it past that fight. And the plot is finally coming into focus... Stupid sleep, I want to keep going but can't.

On a side note, I salvaged batteries so I could play until my 20pk arrived, and after 46 hours (20 of those in the red) and they still haven't died yet. This classic controller + Wii Mote has put every other controller I have seen to shame.

No rumble will do that. . Apparently the original PS3 "you can't do rumble and motion at the same time!!!1" controller had amazing battery life too.

Yeah, Skyward Sword, with all the motion and rumble, usually destroyed my rechargeable battery in about two hours. I looked at it as a way to keep myself from playing too long at a time. Unfortunately/fortunately, Xenoblade's damn battery efficiency meant I hit the five-hour mark a couple times without even noticing.

Holy ****. Borrowed my other brother's Wii. It turns out it is ALSO broken--though, admittedly, the least broken of the lot, in that it plays most discs but can't play any dual-layer games.

So to sum up, that's four brothers, four broken Wiis. Either this laser problem is more widespread than I'd heard, or my family is cursed in a super dorky way.

I think that early Wiis had problems. Mine is a 2008 model so I hope it holds up.

This is odd, usually Nintendo hardware is rock solid. They have always been one company that I never feared buying a launch unit from...

The story is finally rolling along and they stick a large area between me and the next big reveal... I'm already 3 levels over leveled compared to the boss I just curb stomped. (Had a fun gimmick though) so I am afraid as to how overpowered I may end up being. (I looked up the cutoff point for the timed quests and I am very close, as a result I know the level of the boss of the area)

Went back to Bionis Leg and started to curbstomp the hox's on the bridge systems over the lake. Felt good to finally get revenge on them.

Yes and no. A lot of items will be found in later areas that will be needed for future rebuilding but you can trade for all of them. Still, best to stock up on all quest items before hand. (fill out the collectapedia for each area with timed quests as well)

I did spoil the plot a bit looking this up, but I could offer a very minor spoiler hint (less so than I got)

That I haven't looked into. I gave up on Colony 6 after spending hours finishing Makna and not finding a single fossil monkey.

I swapped out the optical drive on our 2007-ish Wii last year after it died. Supposedly, the most recent Call of Duty WIi titles have been guilty of killing Wii drives. In the case of the most recent COD titles for the system (BlOps & MW3), Treyarch did something different due to Wii's paltry RAM - instead of loading an entire level/map, COD Wii basically loads the data as you play, leading to rather overactive drives. Some are claiming that this activity is crushing the mechanincal drives in these units. At one point, NOA was supposedly offering out of warranty fixes to those who had their Wii drive die after playing COD, although based on info I read a while back on the COD official forums, NOA eventually stopped helping out COD users with freebie fixes.

I wonder if Xenoblade is utilizing the same style of "load as you play"?

Mine died while playing COD:BlackOps. It & MW3 will make the Wii drive run like mad - I could hear it fairly loudly with the original drive - less so w/ the new one, but you can certainly hear drive noise more so than on pretty much any other Wii title (incl. the oft-pesky SSBS).

After some searching online, I found I could get a replacement drive from a 3rd party parts supplier (and a Nintendo friendly hex screwdriver) shipped to me in 2 days for a bit less $$ than sending the dead Wii to NOA for an out of warranty repair. Pretty easy to swap yourself.

Something I realized. With minor tweaks this game engine could probably run on the 3DS.

As for the cutoff point it telegraphs itself pretty well when it is coming.

Wow... What a massive event. The scary thing is there is no CG, all in game engine. Bravo.

Cutoff point without spoilers.

When you activate 4 towers, it activates something. Once you approach it triggers a boss. That boss is the start of the cutoff, do not fight it until you are ready, and create a backup save, because the next 3 hours are one insane ride.

I have this game but the nunchuck wiimote combo sucks for me. I'll see if I can get a classic controller cheap.

Check Amazon, I got one for $15 from someone selling an extra from a bundle (fulfilled by Amazon so Prime qualified) like new and never used.

The game really does play better with the classic controller.

Wow, the Final boss is tough. Too late for another attempt, and you can't save after a certain point (you are litterally told that it is the point of no return), so I now have an hour woth of boss fights and cutscenes to redo. I'm going to check out some of the end game quests and explore the rest of the areas availible to me and gain a few more levels.


Update.

Beat the final boss and started a new game plus.

Here is a topic for ending discussions.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=1407812

Kain, Pen linked to the spoiler thread. This is not that one. What is inside the Spoiler tag just got emailed to us that have notifications on.

In other news, I'm taking a break from this right now to play Mass Effect 1 for the second time. Xenoblade is exactly what I'm coming back to once I wrap up Mass Effect. Unlike most games that I set down, I'm anxious to come back to Xenoblade.

New game plus is broken. You get to keep your items and levels and abilities that you have at the end.

And, if the email doesn't hide spoilers, then I would recomend turning off notifications (like I did a long time ago) it is just too risky.

Hurry up and finish the game already, I want someone to talk to about the crazy rollercoaster ride that occurs after the cutoff point.