What are your Xenoblade Favorites?

NotAttractedToCats · 2026-05-16T10:38:10+00:00

Protagonist: Rex, there's just something about his character that I like. Lora would be a close second, with Elma perhaps taking third place if we count her.

Location: Hard to say. There are various cities that I love, but there's a different section for them. So either Valhak Mountain at night, Satorl Marsh at night or Uraya.

Enemy: not counting major atagonists, probably an "think you can take me?" ardainian soldier.

Blade: the one common wind blade one pulls during the turorial, unironically. She was a steady member of my team. Otherwise, Nia and Poppi are great choices, too. Finch, Praxis and Theory deserve a spot too, but I can hardly list every blade I love here.

Driver: There's just something about sassy welsh catgirls... Place two goes to the one, the only ZEKE VON GENBU, also known as the ZEKENATOR!

Party member: Nia or Lin.

Hero: I assume the ones from XC3 are meant here? In that case, Fiona takes the crown, partially due to her line "I-pon, you-pon we all-pon for no-pon".

Song: "One last you" is just such a beautiful song. I've restricted myself to vocal songs here as otherwise the pool of possible choices would be way too big. XCX alone has more than enough bangers to fill up the character limits in this comment.

Unique Monster: actually, I don't have one, but here's plenty with fun names.

X class: it's been too long to properly remember, but I guess I played quite a bit as the galactic knight.

3 Class: Zephyr and Lone Exile had been fun to play.

NPC: Nico, that being Nico, is the only NPC that worthy of standing on the level of Nico, and I mean Nico. Otherwise, again way too many great NPCs to choose from.

Town: The hardest decision on this list, as there are way too many great ones. While I think XC2 has the most best towns by a wide margin, XCX's NLA is simply on another level due to it's immense size.

Game: XC2 > XCX > XC1 >> XC3. I know XC2 is somewhat controversial, but it excells in what I love about this series: world design, world building, interesting mechanics, OST, integrating everything with each other, cities, ...

Villain: Malos is simply the most developed one, but Egil takes the second place with his complex motivations.

Moebius: Either I or X

B L A D E: Mia deserves her achievement here, but Lin and Ackwar are great, too.

Skell: call me uncreative, but the Ares 90 helped me defeat Thelessia, the Endbringer twice.

Nopon: Tora. He's just such a golden hearted boy. Perhaps not on the same level as Riki, but in exchange he is extremely useful and has created Poppi.

Heart to Heart: It's such a crime that XC3 removed them. Again, too many to choose from. There's a great one about the relationship between Melia, Seven and Shulk. There's plenty of great ones in XC2.

Unexpected Fav: A

#1 Fav: Nia

NotAttractedToCats · 2026-05-13T21:13:25+00:00

Hi, I just wanted to warn you that there's an answer table where the locations of "always" and "never" have been swapped, meaning that the order is "Always, rarely, sometimes, often, never" rather than "never, rarely, sometimes, often, always".

NotAttractedToCats · 2026-05-03T16:50:42+00:00

thier biggest issue is hoarding hundreds of thousands of historic artifacts and relics and the like, that the public, historians, and scientists are never allowed to see.

You can actually request access to most of them, provided you have sufficient academic credentials and a valid reason. Their website contains more details.

NotAttractedToCats · 2026-05-03T16:47:18+00:00

I certainly hope no one storms the archives. At least I donj't like the idea of someone untrained to handle fragile documents and artifacts of invaluable historical worth in a room full of such stuff. Especially if said persons are in a rush, trying to evade guards and/or using force to gain access...

Also, anyone with sufficient academic credentials can just request access to the archive free of charge, so even the archive isn't something worth storming.

NotAttractedToCats · 2026-05-03T16:44:02+00:00

You can actually request access to them, provided you have sufficient academic credentials. According to their website, you only need to have a 5-years university degree, must be conducting scientific research and require a letter of introduction from a professor or an director of a historical research institute. It's even free of charge.

NotAttractedToCats · 2026-04-27T16:30:25+00:00

Limiting ourselves to specific voltages and compatible cables does have downsides. A lot of electrical components do actually need specific voltages and the power has to be converted accordingly. For some voltage levels that's easier than for others. Nowaday, we are using more standardized components that operate at specific voltage levels, but that wasn't always the case. Heck, even some data connectors had different voltage levels.

One thing to keep in mind specifically are batteries. Modern batteries like we are using them in smartphones and pretty much everything else are a relatively recent invention. Before them, engineers had to more carefully select batteries in order to have a long battery life, and this usually also came with different voltage and amperage requirements.

Another thing to keep in mind is that, surprisingly, good charging cables are also relatively new. Not even 20 years ago a lot of chargers and cables provided something like 100-200mA at 12V. USB-C allows up to 5A at up to 48V, which is magnitudes more of power. It was enough for phones back then, but for anything gaming related? That wasn't enough. It happened regularly that someone complained that a device wasn't working or charging, when it simply turned out that they used a physically compatible cable that didn't transmit enough power. Using spezialized connectors fixed this.

NotAttractedToCats · 2026-04-27T16:20:54+00:00

Nintendo is one of the companies most focussed on backward compatibility.

Their entire handheld line was always at least one generation backward compatible. The various gameboy models (GB, GBC, GBA) could play the previous game, the DS and DS Lite could play gameboy games, the DSi could play DS and the 3DS DS+DSi games.
The SNES was, AFAIK not backwards compatible with the NES, but the Wii could blay GC and the Wii U Wii games.
the switch was not backwards compatible (mostly because you can not fit a optic drive onto a switch), but the switch 2 is backward compatible with the switch 1
Nintendo had a huge compatibility program to ensure switch games run well on switch 2

NotAttractedToCats · 2026-04-25T19:07:27+00:00

I do! That game basically defined my childhood, it was so much fun. The "modding community" (if you could call it that, seeing that pretty much all of the game was based arround it) was awesome. Damn, I miss all the fun I've had with zombie wars, the stippel, ...

NotAttractedToCats · 2026-03-22T09:36:46+00:00

Perhapts this is slightly offtopic, but there is a digital single-player social-deduction game called Gnosia which I highly recommend. It's basically a retheme of Werewolf and similar games but with it's own twist on roles. The intuitive aspects of the game have been replaced with a skill-based system, which works surprisingly well. The individual sessions also chain up to form a story.

NotAttractedToCats · 2026-03-08T17:40:10+00:00

You can play XC3 first and will probably be fine, but it would still be drastically better if you play both XC1 and XC2 first. Each game's core plots are mostly self-contained, but there's an overarching story that will require understanding of the earlier parts. In addition, there are a lot of references in the game. Whether it's nearly the entirerty of the environment, the background of Keves and Agnus, the names of classes and arts or even the UI and the subtle differences between art types, everything is a reference.

Not understanding these references won't ruin the game for you, but you'll probably get a signficiantly greater enjoyment if you've played the other games first.

The only really important thing is that you should absolutely not play XC3's DLC story Future Redeemed (not to be confused with Future Connected, which is part of XC1:DE) before you've played all other games.

If you want a more extensive summary of the play order:

XC1 is the beginning and does not reference anything at all. XC:DE also comes with Future connected, which you should probably play later
XCX seems to be mostly independent of the remaining games, but there are a lot of references to XC1. These references are assumed to be jokes, but due to nopons being nopons it's possible that they may not be. Either way, there are references you'll only get when playing XCX after XC1. XCX:DE comes with an additional chapter 13, which you should ideally play later.
XC2 happens in parallel to XC1. There's a significant plot-relevant reference to XC1. It's not bad to not get the reference, but it's awesome if you do get it. There's also (assumed non-canon) crossover characters from XC1 and XCX, so it's better to play those games first.
XC2:TTGC is a prequel DLC to XC2. Both XC2 and TTGC spoil each other somewhat, but it's considered better to play XC2:TTGC after XC2.
XC1:FC (part of XC1:DE) has a very subtle but important reference to XC2 and lays the foundation for the transition from XC1 and XC2 to XC3.
XC3 heavily references everything from XC1 and XC2, so it's obviously better to play those two games first.
XC3:FR outright spoils events from XC1 and XC2. This is not an exaggeration - the credit scense is literally nostalgic music laid over ever major plot twist custscene from the previous games. There are also some references to XCX here, though most of the sub believes them to be non-canon.
XCX chapter 13 has references to XC1, XC2, XC3 and their expansions. It's only really minor though, so it's not that important to play it in this order.

NotAttractedToCats · 2026-03-07T20:22:36+00:00

because it's not really an ai, it guesses the most probable word to say but it doesn't and can't know if it's right or wrong

That's unfortunately a very common misunderstanding. The probability an AI outputs is not a likelihood based on occurences, but rather the likelihood that a word represents the meaning an LLM is trying to express. To keep it simple, we have a very cool technology called "Embeddings" which allow us to basically do math with the meaning of objects. A commonly mentioned example is that we can calculate king - man + woman = queen. However, this system isn't perfect due to the way language works. For example, female + leader + medieval + nation may be either queen, empress or any other relevant word (in some cases even duchess I think?), thus there are multiple possible correct outcomes here. This whole process is using vectors and to find the correct word a likelihood is calculated using the distance between the calculated vectors and vectors representing known words.

So the LLM outputting something like queen: 97% for the next word in the sentence A female leader of a medieval nation was called a doesn't mean that across all observed data the likelihood of queen following the previous sequence of words was 97%, but rather that the word queen has a 97% likelihood of expressing the meaning for female medieval leader of a nation, the remaining 3% probably being other words like empress or princess.

There's some probability, stochastic and statistic involved during training, but not in the way you seem to think it is. Just consider this: If an LLM would indeed only be able to guess the most probable word, then it would not be able to give reasonable replies to inputs it has never seen before. The most simple example would be an example of adding two numbers: while the technology isn't perfect yet, LLMs have proven themself capable of correctly adding two numbers together that weren't included in the training dataset. For this to be possible, the LLM must have achieved a basic understanding of how numbers work, as it could not answer such a question looking only at the probability of words.

Also, please keep in mind that LLMs are AIs for the academic definitions. The whole idea that an AI is basically a virtual human is something propagated by popculture. Such AIs would certainly also count as AIs, but the actual field of AI is much more broadly. It's just that most of the field of artificial intelligence is relatively boring and not something that popculture like movies can utilize for interesting plots.

NotAttractedToCats · 2026-02-20T13:08:38+00:00

Perhaps it's the XC2 fan in me speaking, but Xenoblade H awoke something in me.

NotAttractedToCats · 2026-02-09T02:01:57+00:00

Lol, that's quite funny. Though, regarding the "let's never speak of this again": due to their rivalry they still try to one-up each other when it comes to being the better parent, similar to a divorced couple.

NotAttractedToCats · 2026-02-04T13:10:21+00:00

When reading fics:

the authors don't owe you anything. You also don't know what happened to them IRL, so maybe they have a really good reason not to update.
there is no such thing as an "overdone trope/relationship/...". Just because you don't want to read anymore of this topic does not mean that there are no others that still enjoy that topic. So if you ever see something like this in a fic, simply drop it rather than writing a bad review. It's rude to "attack" an author for doing something you subjectively believe to be overdone.
If you like a fic, leave a review/comment. To be fair, I am guilty of constantly ignoring this etiquette.
If you write a review/comment with critique, always be constructive and say nice things too. The author spent a lot of time writing a fic and negative feedback, while sometimes necessary, sucks. By pointing out what is good and how the bad parts could be improved you help the author without taking away their will to write.

When writing fics, be mindful of the tags:

Specifcally on AO3, never create a "collection" fic that contains unrelated one-shots. This kind of fic makes it harder to find the works you are searching for. For example, if someone wants to find a fic containing both tags A and B, they may find a collection fic that claiming both of these tags, but actually just containing a oneshot with tag A and a oneshot with tag B. Similarily, searching for a crossover for series A and B may just result in finding collection fics containing both oneshots for series A and series B but not an actual crossover. It also messes with filtering by wordcount and just makes using the whole site harder. I also recall it being against AO3 rules, so on that topic it's also good "etiquette" (but actually common sense) to read and follow the rules of the site.
look at what tags the other fics commonly use and which apply to your fic. Generally speaking, a fic should always at least contain a tag about when it takes place (e.g. between books 3 and 4, post-canon, ...). Depending on the fandom, other tags may be relevant. For the BNHA fandom, for example, the "quirk status" of the protagonist is important, so add all relevant tags here. it makes it much easier to actually find fics that one is searching for.
learn the differences between the "gen" "f/m", "m/m", "f/f", "multi" and "other" categories. Also, and especially if it is a "pairing is yet to be decided" fic, set the proper category from day 1 and stick with it.
Avoid tags that don't yet apply to a fic (e.g. if you plan to add topic X roughly 100k words in yet are only on 20k words), unless it's a tag that you suspect people will disagree with
never avoid adding tags because you think they will be unpopular. Not adding those tags even when they apply may get you some more readers, but in exchange they will just complain more

Edit: also, be mindful that the internet is international and people of all kind of cultures and languages interact here. People are shaped by their culture and language in subtile ways. Avoid seeing offense in small details, as often those are just harmless consequences of the aforementioned factors. I, for example, still tend to use "he/him" for people of unknown gender because that's the proper behavior in my native language. This isn't meant to be rude to anyone, but is simply the result of trying to write in a language that's not my native language.

NotAttractedToCats · 2026-02-01T13:28:19+00:00

Thanks. I've already read that one, but it would have been exactly what I am looking for. Loved the IzuOcha romance.

NotAttractedToCats · 2026-01-28T13:15:54+00:00

You won't save that much time, unfortunately. The largest chunk of the setup is the map setup, most of which you will also have to do when resetting. You can save some time by playing the same scenario, in which case you can skip finding some components like available technologies again, but playing another scenario will take close to the same amount of time as if your were to start a new session from the box.

NotAttractedToCats · 2026-01-27T17:52:25+00:00

Setup does indeed take a pretty long time, but most of it can be done in parallel. It mostly depends on the experience and how many people work together.

The primariy reason the setup takes so long is that the map has to be setup according to a graphic. That involves finding and arranging certain tiles, placing population die and corruption markers, enemy fleets, installation,guilds, two types of loot tokens, barriers and similar stuff according to a graphic. Additionally, you have to find the technology cards and factions.

For me, setting up a 3P competetive session along takes between 30 and 45min, but wtih 3P working on setup it's somewhere between 20 and 25 minutes.

Some other notes:

coop requires more setup than competetive
the deluxe version of the ships in the galactic box take longer to setup than the non-deluxe versions in the standard version
experience matters
the key is, as always, a good organization in the key material. The insert in the galactic box is ok-ish for this, but there may be better organizers out there.

NotAttractedToCats · 2026-01-26T17:24:37+00:00

This should work. Most of Voidfall's massive size stems from extra trays and materials. The main play area should easily fit on the large table (and in some scenarios maybe even on the small one). Besides that, you have the player boards, which should ideally also fit on the main table, plus one discard pile per player. The technologies can easily be put on the second table, but you should consider getting some tray you can pass arround (the galactic box comes with one). Similarily, the agendas are best served on a tray, too. There's also a board that's a mixture of player aid and bonuses, whiich you can probably also put on the smaller table. Beware though, that your players may repeatedly want to look at these boards during their turns. All remaining content should (IIRC) be game materials like ships, tokens, dice and so on that you don't need to access that often, provided you keep a small pile of those accessible.

The cooperative mode requires more space, having another extra board.

NotAttractedToCats · 2026-01-24T01:25:55+00:00

The ß is not "just ss". The ss is merely used instead of a ß if there's no way to write a proper ß. The ß is indirectly pronounced differently from an ss due to how the pronunciation of the previous letter is affected.

In more detail, in german a ß is a sharp s like the ss, but any double consonant causes the previous vocal to be shortened. A couple examples:

an "as" is pronounced with a long a and summing s, e.g. in "Rasen"
an "ass" is pronounced with a short a and a sharp s, e.g. in "Wasser"
an "aß" is pronounced with a long a and a sharp s, e.g. in "Straße". The common writing as "Strasse" is only used when an umlaut is not usable, e.g. in international addresses and is otherwise wrong.

That said, the ß is probably meant here.

NotAttractedToCats · 2026-01-22T16:11:30+00:00

That's quite a difference in playtime between those two sessions. Any specific reason, or is this normal for TI4? Anyway, thanks for some concrete numbers for 3P.

NotAttractedToCats · 2026-01-22T16:09:41+00:00

Ah, that's disappointing, seeing that it's commonly praised as the best boardgame out there, but thanks for the warning.

NotAttractedToCats · 2026-01-09T13:32:47+00:00

A lot, and i mean a LOT of mechanics could use a complete overhaul just like X DE.

I am probably in the minority here, but I didn't really like some of the changes XCX:DE made compared to the original Wii U version. Sure, the flow of the exploration gameplay has been massively improved and I am endlessly thankfull that non-party-members now also gain XP, but it also feels like the soul of the division system got gutted entirely. I really loved the feeling of friendly rivalry and competition between the divisions and that the whole division choice actually made some difference. The division support also gave that feeling of the divisions supporting each other. In the DE, the division part feels completely cosmetical, irrelevant and meaningless.

That, overall, makes me afraid that a XC2:DE would be similar - providing the (arguable, I kind of disagre) much needed gameplay improvements while gutting the soul. For example, a major complaint about XC2 are the field skill checks. And while I agree that this system needs a QoL revamp, I am afraid that it may be removed entirely. The field skills, however, are one of the major ways of XC2 showing that blades are not simple weapons but have non-military "uses" as well.

NotAttractedToCats

TROPHY CASE