#echo plays XC2

[moved-to-void-kissed]

I could try to get the accessories for the first set of costumes for my alternate colours XC2 run, which all come to about 150 Noponstones in total, roughly

Or I could go for the second set, which total about 600 Noponstones overall, possibly more depending on if I want to get them for everyone (i.e. both the Drivers and their main Blades)

..unfortunately the second set all look much much cooler in my opinion (the only real exception is Tora’s, but I never have him in my party anyway), so.. given that you only get about 10 Noponstones from the challenges I can actually take on at my current level, I guess I’m going to be grinding here for a while .w.

(Also, I’m intending to stream this playthrough, so keep an eye out for when I’ve finalised the starting dates and times if you’re curious to see the story of XC2!)

[zaptap]

min min was the only fighters pass character i even cared about, so i was lucky enough to get her i guess. she deserved it for winning the party crash bash even though she wasnt my favorite character (thatd be either helix or dr coyle), like as soon as they said itd be an arms character i kept saying it should be her and then it was

as for my experience with the other fighers pass characters

id never heard of joker

id never heard of any of the heroes

ive wanted to get into banjo-kazooie but havent gotten around to it

id never heard of terry

hadnt started three houses when byleth was revealed (wanted to wait until i finished echoes) and im still really early in the game

ok ive played minecraft but not for 9 years. not since sakurai started working on smash 4 actually. it’s good but i cant let myself play it i get to into it

i only know sephiroth from the donald duck audio post and the picture of him ordering food ad mcdonalds

barely even finished xc3d a year ago im still catching my breath before i move on to xcx and you’re throwing xc2 characters at me? fuck off and wait in line

id never heard of kazuya

i actually have wanted to get into kindgom hearts for a very long time and ive read the manga of the first game and ive been watching a playthrough of it as well but i just dont care about sora which i think makes this funnier. wouldve preferred donald duck tbh

piranha plant was good though

[cyberramblings]

Smash Wishlist #2: DO NOT WANT

As I found out yesterday, I actually have a lot to say about the characters that I do want in Smash. So today, I thought I’d knock out a bunch of the characters that I know for sure that I do not want to be in Smash Bros but see requested online.

Geno (Super Mario RPG) - This possessed doll (think Pinocchio with a gun for an arm) is side character from a 24 year old Mario spinoff game. I have never understood the wide appeal of this character. I feel like one of the hallmarks of a good Smash inclusion is that even non-fans of the source material say “yeah, that makes sense”, but I feel like Geno only makes sense to fans of the original game. Plus, at this point, characters that don’t represent a new franchise tend to be a letdown as DLC, such as...

Waluigi (Mario Kart, Party, Sports) - I’m generally a Waluigi defender and I think they should’ve found a way to shoehorn him into the game as an echo fighter (especially since Daisy made it in that way). Obviously he wouldn’t work exactly as an echo of Mario, Luigi, or Wario, but I feel like he would be a huge letdown as a standalone DLC announcement. Maybe if they make a dedicated Echo pack, but the purple man can’t be the big anouncement at the end of a Nintendo Direct. I feel like Piranha Plant already took the slot of “joke Mario character included as limited time free DLC”, which would’ve perfectly fit Waluigi. I’d love for him to get included that way at the very end of this game’s lifecycle, but not as part of Fighter Pack #2.

Lloyd (Tales of Symphonia) - He is the protagonist of Tales of Symphonia, a Gamecube JRPG. He is also Japan’s most requested character according to one poll. I played a bit of the original game and it is quite charming, but I feel we already have one too many JRPG protagonists. Between Hero, Cloud, Joker, Ness, Lucas, Shulk, plus the many Pokemon and Fire Emblem characters. Fighter Pass #1 was 1 fighting game character, 1 platformer character, and 3 JRPG protagonists. I’d be fine with Lloyd retroactively taken the slot away from Hero or Byleth, but a one-off character from a 15 year old game doesn’t make a ton of sense (even if he technically was in the Wii sequel). I mean, Banjo was fine even as the star of a dead franchise, but that’s because his series was influential and iconic to the Nintendo 64, whereas ToS is more of a cult classic that never “reached #1 on the charts” in music terms. I’d worry he’d play like Hero, maybe could even be an echo.

Raiden/Sephiroth (Metal Gear/Final Fantasy) - I actually really like Raiden as a cyborg ninja, but both of these silver-haired pretty anime boys serve as foils to Snake/Cloud who are already in the game. Of these two, I’d prefer Raiden by a lot, but we have so many swordfighters already.

Isaac (Golden Sun) - Again, another JRPG protagonist, and one who hasn’t gotten a new game in a decade. I feel like his inclusion would only make sense if there was a new game in development, and even then I’d like to see some more genres/styles represented. I worry he’d play like Hero, he could almost be an Echo.

Funk/Dixie Kong (Donkey Kong Country) - I feel like neither of these Kongs have a ton of momentum right now. King K Rool already got added as a way to round out the DK cast in Smash, so I just don’t feel like we need another Kong (unless we could get either of these Kongs as Echo fighters). I wouldn’t hate this inclusion as long as they tried hard to make unique gameplay.

Any Pokemon (Pokemon Sword and Shield) - Obviously it would make some sense to include a new Pokemon from the new game, but we already have so many of them included. I’m gonna roll my eyes if a new Pokemon makes it in.

Any XCX/XC2 Character (Xenoblade Chronicles) - It’s neat that Shulk made it in at all, I feel like two characters from this series would be overkill. At the very least, I’d hope for it to be a character with gameplay as unique as Shulk.

Protoman/Zero/Roll/Etc. (Mega Man) - I don’t feel like the Mega Man franchise needs more representation, but maybe that is just me. My biggest worry would be that they would play like Mega Man.

Medusa/Viridi (Kid Icarus) - Palutena and Dark Pit’s inclusions are already obvious favoritism, so I feel like one more Kid Icarus character would be overcool (unless....Echo...)

Porky Minch (Earthbound) - He got to be in Brawl as a boss, and frankly Earthbound needs more games before they get more reps.

Quote (Cave Story) - I recognize that Cave Story was important in the early indie game scene, but I just don’t feel like the game has aged well enough to warrant an inclusion, but I wouldn’t be crazy upset if he made it in. 

Noctis (FFXV) - Kind of like Byleth’s inclusion, this one would just feel obligatory to me, like a cash grab to tie in to FFXV, especially since we already have Cloud.

Jibanyan (Yo-Kai Watch) - Don’t like his design, don’t want to see the series represented. 

Rayman/Crash/Spyro - This wouldn’t be the worst ever, but I feel like Banjo already took the slot of “surprise platformer crossover” and all of these characters would be barking up the same tree. Of them, I think Crash makes the most sense since he actually has an upcoming game, but really any of these three would be fine “meh” inclusions. I’m not gonna get excited when I see them announced, but I’m not gonna throw a fit (which is how I felt about Terry and Hero).

Heavy (Team Fortress 2) - I have no idea why I see this posted so often. TF2 is a now-ancient PC first person shooter. There are many better picks for Smash’s first FPS character or first PC character. I think it would be kinda neat, but I don’t even need to plan my reaction because it is so unlikely.

By process of elimination, the astute amongst you can deduce what characters I actually do still want in the game, but I will be elaborating on that in the future. It goes without saying, but I will be happy with whatever characters are picked so long as they are fun to play and don’t mess up the meta too much (not because I care about the meta, but because I’m sick of seeing memes about overpowered characters and I still have flashbacks from Smash 4 Bayo/Cloud).

[softbrionne]

I finally finished the main story of XC2 and some thoughts:

1. Mòrag is my gf and

2. I feel like the genre changed to mecha instead of fantasy SF near the end of the story but yknow what it was good.

The voice acting was awkward for me at first but Nia, Brighid, and Mòrag’s English VA with the accents was really good and tbh I wouldn’t trade them for the JP voicelines. The fanservice sometimes was also too much for me. Like why was the Mythra/Rex sleepwalking scene there at all lol. And Dahlia the blade absoluely killed me. The character designs had an obsession with skimpily dressed female characters and huge boobs, which I can overlook (eg Nim), but only to a certain extent, and some cutscenes and characters were pushing me there (DAHLIA...).

The callbacks to XC1 was cool but I’m still waiting for the switch port so someone filled me in on the Easter eggs while I was watching the final cutscene, which did get me emotional!! Felt really bad for Poppi 😔

Anyways I didn’t think I would get so into XC2 when I first played it and was wandering around in Argentum wondering wtf was up with the fighting mechanic and wishing it was more organic like BotW with how you interact with the overworld but I ended up really liking it! I have like 200 hours logged in as of now lol

I do have the DLC and I’m gonna play Torna soon, but I’m also kind of torn right now on how to read Jin and Lora’s relationship as simply really good friends or a tragic love story (both which I’m totally behind but the second makes me feel worse for Jin)

Also if XC2 gets a rep for Smash, I know this is unlikely but I would KILL for it to be Mòrag with her whipswords. Probably unlikely because she’s 1) a side character that stops being relevant after her subplot is over and 2) doesn’t seem to be a very popular character with both the western and Japanese fanbase 😭 we’d probably get Rex or Pyra/Mythra with maybe an Addam echo fighter if anything but I dream of the day I can main Mòrag

[darkspellmaster]

E3 2018 Thoughts on Nintendo

So Nintendo over the years has learned to show only what’s coming out soon rather than bait fans with a teaser for a game that is way out in production (Looking at you Sony and Microsoft). In addition, they used their direct this year to push forward the versatility of the Switch as well as give a huge show of appreciation to the Smash Pro community that pretty much built itself from the ground up.  I will give Nintendo this much, their booth this year, while not as cool as the Mario one last year, did have a lot going on and the game lines for just Smash and Let’s go Pokemon were over 4 hours long. They had to cut them off on all three days and set up areas for people to watch others play on big screens.

Also both of their tournaments did strong numbers this year, showing that Splatoon and Smash are still hitters in the E-sports area. Though now I hope Arms gets in there because that game is fun.

Dameon X Machenia reminded me a hell of a lot of the Super robot Wars games that come out for Gundam and other series. Yet this was very different. Flying robots to fight what looks like monsters/mecha seems like a fun way to pass the time. Also, based on the Tree house showing, there’s a customization element going on not just with the avatar (which you can chose your gender) but also the robot itself and it’s weapons. There’s also an area that looks to allow online play along with a single player campaign. Again, mixed feelings, unless you can invite people into the server that you want playing with you so that you know no jerks will just jump in and ruin the game. Over all I like what I see, but it’s a ways out. Nice of them to start with something exciting.

Super Mario Party looks amazing. So apparently we can have four players to one switch via the tv set up, but also two switches can be made to change up the board, which brings up the question, can you have more than four players playing if you have three or more switches? It’s Mario Party so most people know the drill for this one. I do like that they kept in a lot of things from the older titles and apparently we’re going to have Bowser as an option to play. This should be interesting to see, and probably will be a buy for me once I’m done with my back log of games.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Torna the Golden DLC. This could practically be a game in and of itself given the way that the story is taking shape here. It looks really interesting and is certainly filling in gaps in the story that we had from XC2. What I’m wondering is if Xeno will rival FF, Tales and DQ in the future with the story telling and now the world building. I should note too that the Challenge mode brought back in Shulk and Fiora from the first Xenoblade Chronicles story. Visually the game looks amazing and really got me excited to buy the DLC, and, apparently there is a second edition that let’s you get both the DLC and the original game. Similar to the FF XV Royal edition.

This one is the one that I’ve personally been waiting for. As a Fire Emblem Fan since way back from the Game Boy Advanced Version, it’s exciting to see an new FE show up on the Switch. Fire Emblem Three Houses showed up and wow. Since this is clearly an incomplete game there’s things that need to be worked on, but from what we saw I would say it’s really visually amazing. Reportedly the artist that did the art for the Uta wa no Prince Sama series is providing the art here. Though I don’t know because others are saying it reminds them of the artist from the Persona Series. I will say though that the character’s look amazing, and the fact that it’s not an Avatar in this game means that a lot of the story and depth of the story will rely on the characters interacting with one another. Another cool thing was the system where you can train the characters in different triangle weapons, which can become useful. From what we’ve seen there appears to be an open world aspect of this, and you can run around. Also units now have warriors with them and can create formations based on what you need. Over all this looks fun and the animation for the cut scenes are top notch. I won’t lie I’m a bit biased on this one.

Fortnite was a good move on the switch’s part, and the fact that they showed it in a way that is different than how Sony, Microsoft, or PC shows the game means that they can pull in players that normally may not want to play this. The vibrant color had me going “Wait…is that Fortnite? What the hell? Is it really that goofy?” as most version I’ve seen have had people wearing serious clothing rather than the goofy stuff that you can get. Honestly, if I was good at shooters and liked them, this trailer would have made me pick it up. I hope that people playing on PC and Xbox are having fun with Nintendo players…Sony, I know you were burned in the past by Nintendo, and have issues with Microsoft and for some odd reason hate PCs, but come on…stop locking people out of playing with others. Sheesh!

Hollow Knight, another interesting showing here. Hollow Knight I heard was a good get for the switch, given that it’s a fan favorite. Mix of platforming and fighting will work well on the switch. To be honest while it’s cute and all I’ll have to see if I want to get it.

Killer Queen Black is a surprise for some people, as it was a small arcade game that had a loyal following but was believed to not be able to be put on a console system. Apparently they did it. It seems to be a timed exclusive so it may not stay just on the Switch. Looks like fun, but I’m not a bee fan honestly. But it looks nice and I’m sure that other people will love to play it.

Overcooked 2, I can’t wait to get. It seems like an awesome game and one that I will be playing a lot with friends. Reminds me a bit of dinner dash but with puzzle elements and strategy. Should be a good buy for people that want to have something a bit more relaxing to play in it’s own way.

Octopath Traveler showed up again, and mentioned a new Demo. Square later went on at E3 to say that they’re going to make a division for the Switch so that’s a promising thing. The game’s demonstration at the tree house has made this a day one for me, which is rare outside of again, Fire Emblem. So this has me very excited and I hope to see more games like this and others from Square Enix on the Switch.

Let’s Go Pokemon: Pikachu/Evee. Pretty much seemed like Pokemon Yellow. I mean, you play with Pikachu following you around rather than in the ball, and it combines elements of pokemon go. On top of that you can transfer pokemon from go to the game, and you get a mew in the new pokeball add on...although I wish the price was a bit lower for that pokeball. Sheesh! 

They had a quick run down of games coming out including: Octo Expansion, SNK Heroines Tag Team Frenzy, Dragon Ball Fighter Z, Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate, Ninjala, Paladins: Realm Royale, Roller Coaster Tycoon Switch, Starlink: Battle for Atlas, Tales of Vesperia: Definitive Edition (may have shown this it went fast), sushi Striker. 

Smash Brothers Ultimate, I know some were disappointed that this took up so much time, but there’s something that has to be said. This is really, outside of maybe the bigger tournaments, that Nintendo has shown that they have been paying attention to the pro scene for their fighting game. With all the tweeks that they did to this game, and allowing the characters in there the way that they did, they’re going to be a contender at larger game tournaments like Evo and the like. Back when the switch was first show in 2017 there was the whole E-sports section, and I think that Nintendo is actually looking into that with some of it’s games. The various things, like the one on one fighting being made to be more devastating when you have solo fights means that, for pros, the game will move faster. Having the different stage styles also means it’s better for the competition scene so that the game can be played there.

I’m glad to see Ice Climbers back, all my Fire Emblem characters are still there, Wii Fit is back, the amazing Pit is there still, I love that we now have Daisy –my girl –as a character to play as, and we finally got Ridley –after all this time… Now Sakurai, please put in Takamaru from the Mystery of Muramasa castle as not an assist and I will praise you to the high heavens. Oh yeah and Proto and Base (Bass?) are in Megaman’s smash now. (Proto as an echo fighter please? Or Zero?)

As for the other games that are coming out to Switch, while they didn’t show them all…here’s the list from E3 2018 of the games that are coming:

Adventure Time: Pirates of the Enchiridion

Bomber Crew

Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy –Rumors are going around that Spyro may also be coming too

Dead Cells

Defender's Quest: Valley of the Forgotten DX

Dragon Quest XI –apparently yes it is coming for the switch.

The Elder Scrolls: Legends –tired of this being on your phone…use it on the Switch on the go.

Fallout Shelter

Fate Extella Link –Hey what do you know…the Fate series is now on the Switch

FIFA 19

Freedom Planet

Gal Metal –music game that has an interesting story

Galak-Z: Variant S –You like Gundam? You like arcade games? Well this is right up your alley

Harold Halibut

Just Dance 2019

Kingdom: Two Crowns

LEGO DC Supervillains

Little Dragons Café –What if you could raise dragons in the world of Harvest Moon, same creators

Mario + Rabbids DLC

Mario Tennis Aces –This was kind of interesting to see in the Tree house, making me consider getting it.

Mega Man 11

My Friend Pedro –Yeah the gag game that is coming to PC from Digital Revolver, it’s on the Switch.

My Hero Ones Justice –For those of us who want to smash things with Lord Murder Explosion (Bakugo)

NBA Live 19

Planet Alpha

Raji: An Ancient Epic

Shining Resonance Refrain –Kind of wish this one was shown, but Sega does what Sega does…

Spintires: MudRunner –basically you want to play with all terrain vehicles…then here you go.

State of Mind

Super Meat Boy Forever

Team Sonic Racing

Trials Rising –wish they would have shown some of this

Valkyria Chronicles 4 –Sega….you should have had your own direct…seriously

'V-Rally 4

Wargroove

Arcade Donkey Kong

That’s a lot of games coming out for the Switch…most of these would be fun to play…and that’s not even listing the ones that were already out prior to E3.

Over all, for presentation regarding the use of the Direct, I’d say A- to a B mostly because of the variety. Though I do think that they could have elongated their direct to give more showings of the games that weren’t Smash that were coming to the Switch. 

[moved-to-void-kissed]

I was trying to figure out if there was a reason why I haven’t played XC2 or continued with my stream playthrough for so long (sorry to the people who were watching that, I didn’t mean for this to happen!!), and I stopped at the start of Chapter 7, so.. I think it might be a combination of knowing there’s a cutscene somewhere along the lines that I do not want to see but not knowing where it is to brace myself, and also the fact that getting through the next area is something I tend to try and do as quickly as possible and so actually watching all the cutscenes this time around (and there are a lot of long cutscenes in this area of the game) is going to make it a massively long trek

[moved-to-void-kissed]

aaaah I’m *finally free of this nightmare quest*

..You could argue it was worth it to see this adorable smile

but also Ursula, my adorable child, why could you not have shown up as my fourth rare Blade rather than my fourth-to-last rare Blade so I could have chipped away at your over-100 required missions over the course of the story, not in almost one go at 50 (now 60) hours in

[moved-to-void-kissed]

happy anniversary to Xenoblade Chronicles 2, a game I managed to spend 55 hours on within two weeks of getting it which promptly became over 250 hours not long after that

a game that was really the first big new interest I developed since starting my selfship blog, which I’m wondering is part of the reason why I have a high number of F/Os (including no less than four romantic selfships) in it

and just generally happy four years to a game that, for all its design flaws, holds a very special place in my heart for the story it tells

[moved-to-void-kissed]

I’m back streaming again today if anyone wants to come along! We’re near the start of Chapter 3 at the moment, but I’ll see how far I’m able to get today!

[moved-to-void-kissed]

I was streaming for five hours and I see people had fun while I was gone, haha

[moved-to-void-kissed]

aaaa i missed the stream today !! what time do u usually plan to stream ?

It’s alright!! No need to worry! I start at 6pm my time, which I believe is BST? And I usually make a post on Tumblr linking to my Twitch when I start streaming, so people who follow me can show up as well if they want to!

We just got to Garfont Village, so there isn’t *too* much to catch up on if you wanted to skim through the video record, which I believe is automatically stored on my Twitch somewhere.

Sorry I wasn’t clear on this before!

[moved-to-void-kissed]

I got her again on the same Driver in the exact same point in the story on my stream playthrough, how has this happened twice now

GUESS WHO JUST GOT KOS-MOS NOT EVEN SEVEN HOURS INTO THE GAME

MY GIRLFRIEND CAME HOME

[moved-to-void-kissed]

Update: everyone has the right accessories equipped and I’ve reset the save file as much as I can (released all my Common and Rare Blades, sold all my accessories/Core Chips/Aux Cores that aren’t the costume ones/cylinders/etc. then bought and sold stuff to get rid of most leftover money) so I think I should be ready to start streaming the playthrough pretty soon!

I accidentally missed Poppi’s costumes, but I like her normal colour schemes anyway, so it’s fine. There’s also someone else, but I think it might have accidentally spoiled something pretty big if I tried to equip theirs, so I might not be able to incorporate that alternate costume. But apart from that, everyone has one of their alternate costumes or colour palettes, just to make the playthrough a bit different! It’s also in New Game Plus because of that, but that doesn’t really change anything story-wise, so don’t worry.

I’m still in the process of figuring out what times work best for everyone (and also trying to figure out how Twitch works), but I’m going to start streaming my XC2 playthrough from Monday onwards, so keep an eye out if you’re curious to watch the story! Despite the name, it isn’t actually a direct sequel to XC1, although it does spoil very important endgame things for that game, so.. make of it what you will.

I could try to get the accessories for the first set of costumes for my alternate colours XC2 run, which all come to about 150 Noponstones in total, roughly

Or I could go for the second set, which total about 600 Noponstones overall, possibly more depending on if I want to get them for everyone (i.e. both the Drivers and their main Blades)

..unfortunately the second set all look much much cooler in my opinion (the only real exception is Tora’s, but I never have him in my party anyway), so.. given that you only get about 10 Noponstones from the challenges I can actually take on at my current level, I guess I’m going to be grinding here for a while .w.

(Also, I’m intending to stream this playthrough, so keep an eye out for when I’ve finalised the starting dates and times if you’re curious to see the story of XC2!)