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Post by DarknessLink7 on Dec 8, 2015 14:27:08 GMT -5
I figured it would be cool to share our thoughts on the story up to a certain point somewhere. I love to read what people think.
Keep in mind, no spoilers for anything other than chapter 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8.
Anyway, to kick things off; Here are the main mysteries so far in my opinion:
1. Why did the alien races battle two years ago? 2. Who was the mysterious defender of the White Whale? 3. Why are the Ganglion so intent on killing humans? 4. Who is Goetia and what is her motivation? Answer: A Ganglion who is intent on exterminating all humans. 5. Why does the number on the BLADE tower decrease? Answer: To signify the amount of mim fuel left. 6. How are the humans able to understand the languages? 7. What is the Great One that Luxaar is talking about? 8. What is the giant black Mech that we found? Answer: The vessel of The Great One. 9. What was that thing than Vandham wanted to bring up about Elma in the hangar? 10. Why did the huge flying monster save us from the Tainted? 11. What's up with Lao?
Do you have any cool questions or ponderings so far?
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Post by heroponriki on Dec 11, 2015 22:18:46 GMT -5
Well I was right. Some serious **** went down in Chapter 8.
The furry duo is definitely gonna do a heel-face turn and join the good guys. I mean seriously, all the signs are there: -Plucky misfits -Defiant towards their leaders -Reluctant to kill innocents -Former prince (seriously what is it with former princes and this trope?) -Conspicuously friendly faces in a group full of grotesque reptilians.
The only questions remaining are when it will happen and if they will be playable afterwards.
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Post by DarknessLink7 on Dec 13, 2015 8:34:41 GMT -5
Ohh, I'm at the beginning of ch.8 now... Damn, that army looks huge. I just realized they spoiled this battle in one of the earlier trailers for this game. Also, heroponriki, I haven't read your post yet. Gonna finish the chapter first.
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Post by DarknessLink7 on Dec 13, 2015 12:37:03 GMT -5
Well I was right. Some serious **** went down in Chapter 8. The furry duo is definitely gonna do a heel-face turn and join the good guys. I mean seriously, all the signs are there: -Plucky misfits -Defiant towards their leaders -Reluctant to kill innocents -Former prince (seriously what is it with former princes and this trope?) -Conspicuously friendly faces in a group full of grotesque reptilians. The only questions remaining are when it will happen and if they will be playable afterwards. Hahaha, yeah you have a point! They looked kinda cool in my opinion, so I'd be all for this! As for the rest of the chapter, the battle in the city was very cool! Don't know how I would've survived without my Skell. O.o I really liked Ryyz and Dagdahn. They seemed like an interesting couple. And then we have Lao. Lao, Lao, Lao... What to do with you? I've had my suspicions since he started disappearing from time to time, so I guess I was prepared. Good on Elma for realizing it. Well, I guess it's not proven yet, but ya know. He and L are my two favorite characters, so if Lao bails on us I'm gonna be sad! :/ We did learn that the Black Skell is the vessel for The Great One. Not sure what that means exactly, but we know why Luxaar wanted it so bad.
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Post by heroponriki on Dec 13, 2015 12:49:50 GMT -5
I feel like Lao is a red herring. There's the gameplay issue that nothing in this game is missable, so he can't outright bail on BLADE or else players that hadn't done his affinity missions yet will be screwed. They could make them mandatory before continuing the story, but that would be incredibly obnoxious to force players to grind his affinity to the max just to continue the main story, and then take him away from you right afterwards. So if he betrays the party in any way it will probably be in a minor way that they forgive him for and he continues fighting with BLADE.
There probably is a traitor within NLA though. My bets are on Tatsu.
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Post by SirMouse on Jan 3, 2016 0:48:17 GMT -5
I thought this was a great chapter by itself and an amazing one when compared to every chapter that came before it.
It's pretty frustrating to realize the game's story didn't pick up much until after the midway point, because if it could've been this engrossing from the beginning, it'd probably be a much stronger plot.
Instead, chapter 8 being so good ironically shined a huge spotlight on the issue this game has with poor pacing.
Having said that, I'm glad the plot picked up at all, and I'm definitely interested to find out what happens next (or how, I should say, seeing as how I've been spoiled somewhat).
Also, shout-out to New LA having no visual signs (that I've seen) of the battle that took place within it. I guess we're supposed to assume they repaired all the damage overnight? I digress.
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Post by ancientrune on Jan 3, 2016 3:13:02 GMT -5
Actually there are about 5 wreakages that appear after the battle that you can collect
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Post by DarknessLink7 on Jan 3, 2016 12:00:10 GMT -5
I thought this was a great chapter by itself and an amazing one when compared to every chapter that came before it. It's pretty frustrating to realize the game's story didn't pick up much until after the midway point, because if it could've been this engrossing from the beginning, it'd probably be a much stronger plot. Instead, chapter 8 being so good ironically shined a huge spotlight on the issue this game has with poor pacing. Having said that, I'm glad the plot picked up at all, and I'm definitely interested to find out what happens next (or how, I should say, seeing as how I've been spoiled somewhat). Also, shout-out to New LA having no visual signs (that I've seen) of the battle that took place within it. I guess we're supposed to assume they repaired all the damage overnight? I digress. You were spoiled by the Prima guide, right? Something about a certain enemy name? If so, I think the thing you're referring to isn't a big deal. I'm VERY cautious around spoilers and that spoils almost nothing. So go ahead and enjoy the plot without being worried about that.
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Post by SirMouse on Jan 3, 2016 13:39:47 GMT -5
I thought this was a great chapter by itself and an amazing one when compared to every chapter that came before it. It's pretty frustrating to realize the game's story didn't pick up much until after the midway point, because if it could've been this engrossing from the beginning, it'd probably be a much stronger plot. Instead, chapter 8 being so good ironically shined a huge spotlight on the issue this game has with poor pacing. Having said that, I'm glad the plot picked up at all, and I'm definitely interested to find out what happens next (or how, I should say, seeing as how I've been spoiled somewhat). Also, shout-out to New LA having no visual signs (that I've seen) of the battle that took place within it. I guess we're supposed to assume they repaired all the damage overnight? I digress. You were spoiled by the Prima guide, right? Something about a certain enemy name? If so, I think the thing you're referring to isn't a big deal. I'm VERY cautious around spoilers and that spoils almost nothing. So go ahead and enjoy the plot without being worried about that. The enemy I'm spoiled about is a particular character. Regardless of whether or not we're on the same page, though, I don't know the context of it all, so at the very least, I still have the why and how of things to look forward to. That and the game has kinda been bluntly hinting at it (just like it's been hinting at Elma's "secret") this whole time anyway, so it honestly wouldn't have come as a surprise regardless.
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Post by DarknessLink7 on Jan 3, 2016 15:37:30 GMT -5
You were spoiled by the Prima guide, right? Something about a certain enemy name? If so, I think the thing you're referring to isn't a big deal. I'm VERY cautious around spoilers and that spoils almost nothing. So go ahead and enjoy the plot without being worried about that. The enemy I'm spoiled about is a particular character. Regardless of whether or not we're on the same page, though, I don't know the context of it all, so at the very least, I still have the why and how of things to look forward to. That and the game has kinda been bluntly hinting at it (just like it's been hinting at Elma's "secret") this whole time anyway, so it honestly wouldn't have come as a surprise regardless. I think we're on the same page. I cannot know for sure, but you probably haven't spoiled yourself in the way you think you have. Look at it like this; Remember how Shulk gets a vision in the beginning of the original Xenoblade? Pretend that's what happened with your character.
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Post by SirMouse on Jan 3, 2016 16:46:23 GMT -5
The enemy I'm spoiled about is a particular character. Regardless of whether or not we're on the same page, though, I don't know the context of it all, so at the very least, I still have the why and how of things to look forward to. That and the game has kinda been bluntly hinting at it (just like it's been hinting at Elma's "secret") this whole time anyway, so it honestly wouldn't have come as a surprise regardless. I think we're on the same page. I cannot know for sure, but you probably haven't spoiled yourself in the way you think you have. Look at it like this; Remember how Shulk gets a vision in the beginning of the original Xenoblade? Pretend that's what happened with your character. Haha, that's a good way to look at it. In any case, I kinda figured there was much more to it than what could be assumed from the surface, but it's definitely relieving to have that confirmed for me. And like I said before, the game has been shoving both that and Elma's secrecy into the player's face throughout the past few chapters, so I'm not even mad about being "spoiled" anymore, as it seems the game wants the player to jump to certain conclusions.
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Post by Wolfe on Jan 4, 2016 11:26:47 GMT -5
...like I said before, the game has been shoving both that and Elma's secrecy into the player's face throughout the past few chapters, so I'm not even mad about being "spoiled" anymore, as it seems the game wants the player to jump to certain conclusions. Yeah, I was a bit surprised how blunt the game is about the spoilers that were floating around over the past several months. To the extent that the mimeosome reveal, for example, seems more like a way to establish a plot point at a certain pace than something that is meant to be a secret. After all, your character can be customized with robot eyes, your initial equipment is labelled "Prototype", and Elma explains you can dive off a cliff without injury in the first chapter. Having completed chapter 12, I think the way the game leads you along serves to obfuscate some of the spoilers.
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Post by Max Galactica on Mar 1, 2016 1:52:35 GMT -5
Just finished the chapter. It surprisingly didn't take me as long as I thought it would. But that's probably because I'm severely overleveled (like Level 52 overleveled). And I'm jamming to NO.EX01 as I type this. I do have to say that this was easily the best chapter of the game thus far. There was some fantastic cinematography with the Skell combat and the Ga Jiarg and the female Wrothian battle scene (the moment when Ga Jiarg put away his light saber at the end was SO cool!). And the music was golden as always. CODENAMEZ and NO.EX01 were the highlights of the chapter. One thing that bothered me was the scene where Nagi was talking at the beginning, he felt lifeless and stiff when he was talking there. Vandham was the same in his countdown, but to a lesser degree. We got introduced to two new villains in this chapter, Ryyz and Dagahn. Their design is really cool, but that's really all I can say about them so far. Once again, just like with Goetia, they lack any character development at this point for me to feel anything during their scenes. The use of NO.EX01 during their battle was excellent once again. I pretty much did nothing but auto-attack during their battle. I was able to get two loops of the song that way. (Now I'm rocking out to CODENAMEZ) Now, for the interesting parts of the chapter. I feel like they revealed way too much about the future of the plot here. It kind of ruins the surprise of when it actually happens. Lao's future betrayal is becoming as obvious as ever: from him ordering his troops off of the black skell to Elma's musings about him at the end. The obvious question is why he's working for the Ganglion and how that connects to the loss of his family back on Earth (I feel like that will become important in future events involving Lao). The next thing is the significance of the black skell. Obviously it's important to the Ganglion and to Luxaar for them to ravage the city just to get it. It's apparently the vessel for The Great One, who I'm assuming is Vita that Ryyz mentioned. I've seen that name thrown around so much around the interwebs. Now I finally know (I think) what Vita is. If I were to speculate on what's going to happen, Lao is going to betray us within the next few chapters, Luxaar will use the black skell to resurrect Vita (I don't know why he wants to bring him back so badly), and we'll have to fight and kill Ga Jiarg in the future. Another thing that I realized I hadn't said anything about here. I meant to write this after I finished chapter 6, but I guess I didn't. I guess this might be spoilers, so I'll just mark them as such, just in case I end up being right. Here's my guess on Elma based on what's happened: I don't think Elma's human. In the prologue, when we first met her, she referred to Earth as YOUR planet, not OUR planet. Another thing is that Elma referenced that Lin and Cross would be in for a surprise when we eventually found the Lifehold Core. I'm guessing that when we find that, Elma will assume her real body and reveal her secret that the game has been hinting at for so long. Overall, it was a very good chapter, but I felt it fell kind of short of what everyone was hyping this chapter up to be. But I am very interested in what will happen next. Now, onto another 20+ hours of side quests, affinity missions, and tyrant slaying before I do the next chapter! (I'm at 184 hours now)
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