23. Quest Log. The Quest log can be accessed from the menu and is used to help you keep track of quests. You can check new quests,current quests, as well as completed quests. You can also select different categories so that you can check only new quests, or only current quests, or quests in specific locations.
22. Live Quests. On very rare occasions in Xenoblade, you might stumble upon a live occurring quest while exploring the world. What this means is that if you are at the right place, at the right time, in the right conditions, you might trigger a quest. It will pop up and tell you the details and has to do with a situation occurring close by such as you have to save somebody being attacked by a monster. These appear to be quite rare but none the less, are a nice touch.
21. Art Symbols. The pictures of Arts that go in the Battle Palette tell you about the Art. Pink attacks are capable of inflicting break, green can inflict Topple and yellow can inflict Daze. Red Arts are just general attacks, purple inflict status effects. Blue Arts are to be used on your own party members, and orange are Auras.
20. Sharla Character Profile. Sharla is a 21-year-old playable character in Xenoblade Chronicles. She wields a rifle that uses ether energy, which she uses to great effect for defensive and healing purposes. She is sometimes referred to as “medic” in-game.
When you first meet her, Sharla lives in Colony 6 with her younger brother Juju. Sharla is a clear thinker, able to keep a cool head in a bad situation. She hates the Mechon for everything they’ve done in the past, vowing to “scrap each and every last one” of them.
19. The Bionis’ Leg. The Bionis’ Leg is the second open area in the game and is of course on the Bionis’ Leg. This is probably the most well known area for those that have yet to play the game, as it tends to be featured a lot in images. The area is huge, consisting of two separate levels. Gaur Plains is the wide field the party will first see when they enter onto The Bionis’ Leg. There are many kinds of enemies here, and at many different levels. Explorers should be cautious as there are some enemies in certain areas that are well over level 50.
18. Party Tension During Battle. During battle, you can increase your Tension and Affinity (Party Gauge) by shouting encouragement to party members when their tension is low or when they land a critical hit. You can also help party members who are in bad condition or who are unable to fight. Your party members can also come to your own character’s assistance when you are in a bind. Using ‘Affinity Actions’ during Battle can increase your Party Members’ morale.
The Party Performs better in battle when their tension is high.
17. Dunban’s Voice Actor (Japanese). Dunban’s Japanese voice actor, Ryō Horikawa, has his own major body of work as well: Vegeta in the Dragon Ball series, Andromeda Shun in Saint Seiya, Heiji Hattori in Detective Conan/Case Closed, Tolten in the game Lost Odyssey, and most notably, Captain Falcon in the Super Smash Bros. games.
16. Melia Character Profile. Melia is of the High Entia race that mostly reside in the city if Alcamoth. Relatively, Melia is quite young when compared to other members of her race. The party first encounters Melia in Makna Forest.
Melia uses ether(magic) to attack, making her the only mage in the game. Melia is capable of doing serious damage if the right gems and skills are equipped on her such as Electric Plus. Unfortunately, the AI does a poor job of handling her. However, if you personally control her, she can become a force capable of single-handedly defeating the toughest of enemies.
15. Current Equipment in Cutscenes. Xenoblade does what only a few JRPG do, any clothing/equipment you equip is reflected in cutscenes & heart to heart moments, meaning you can start a new game plus, have the best equipment, and the look will be seen throughout the game at all times. You can even be as pictured for the entire game, after the game’s prologue, to the final battle.
14. Makna Forest. Makna Forest is the warm, temperate forest that the Nopon make their home in. It is split in two by a great chasm, through which a fast-flowing river flows at the bottom. The river is fed by the beautiful Makna Falls, found near the forest’s entrance. Makna Forest is located on the Bionis’ back. It has huge Ether deposits in various places, which attract all kinds of weird and wonderful creatures. It’s a huge area to explore, and there are plenty of difficult places to find. One in particular gives a fantastic view of the falls. Make sure to explore the area very thoroughly!
13. Monolith Soft. Monolith Soft, a subsidary of Nintendo, developed Xenoblade Chronicles, but did you know that they also co-developed the RPG Baten Kaitos (alongside Tri-Crescendo) on the Nintendo GameCube as well as it’s prequel Baten Kaitos Origins which was even published by Nintendo in the year 2006.
You can play two of these games on your Nintendo GameCube or your Nintendo Wii since it’s backwards compatible if you didn’t play them when they came out, to give you an idea of the talent and arsenal that Monolith Soft possesses while waiting for Xenoblade Chronicles!
12. Gem Crafting 101 Part 1. Each material has a value for certain stats enhancers. Say, Agility Up or Poison Defence. To gain a Gem from materials, you need to raise the stat above 100. This will ensure a Gem will be created. The trick is to select Crystals and Cylinders until you reach a 100+ value on the stat of your preference. This is a delicate proccess, as when the value is over 100 you can not add any more to it. So it’s imporant to keep materials for crafting in order.
Thankfully the game helps you, with highlighting the material compatiable with another material. This means they enhance at least one of the stats of your chosen material. Continue until you’ve reached a 100+ stat and try to not have more than 3 or 4 stat enhancement affected in total.
11. Gem Crafting 101 Part 2. This is probably the most confusing part as it involves Flames, Fever and whatnot. This is where is get’s really confusing, but in short: during crafting the Shooter and the Engineer will boost the stat values of the enhancements chosen through your materials and will fill the Cylinder gauge respectively. How many times they will boost and fill is dependent upon the Affinity of the chosen characters.
A good exmaple would be to put Reyn in Shooter and Shulk in Engineer roles, but this may vary depending upon your personal game. Then select a balanced approach of the best boost of the Shooter and the most stable Flames of the Engineer (with a high Affinity of course)
Now the animation will start. You can fast-forward through it by holding the A button. Depending upon the selection of your Shooter and Engineer (and just plain luck) your enhancements will be boosted and your Cylinder Gauge (the green gauge right of the ehancements list) will fill up. When they are done, all enhancements with values above 100 will be converted into Gems. If you have values above 200 these will display as ‘Heat’ and will generate a higher Rank Gem instead (as a bonus it also boosts other values)!
