9 Things to Do First in Xenoblade Chronicles 2

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is a massive game with a lot to learn. Keeping track of everything from your blades and cores to Weapon Points, Art Points and more can be a bit complicated. IGN has you covered.

Check out these tips on how to get an early head start in Alrest.

There are moments in the game where Rex is the only member of your party. Don’t do much during these moments. Combat is designed for parties of three, and most fights you get in alone will prove to be your undoing. When you find a challenge you’d like to take on and have only one person in your party, take note of it and move on. These moments don’t last very long. Advance the story in these moments and you’ll be back to full strength in no time.

In Xenoblade Chronicles 2, inns are far more important than they are in other RPGs. As you complete quests and other tasks, you’ll earn experience. This experience, however, isn’t given to you immediately, instead it accumulates as bonus experience. When you sleep at an inn, you can choose to spend your bonus EXP. Depending on how long you wait between visits to an inn, you can level up multiple times.

Throughout your journey, your blades will grow along with you. You’ll occasionally receive a notice on screen telling your blade has unlocked a new ability. What the game won’t tell you, however, is that the ability won’t actually unlock until you go the blade’s affinity screen and take a look to see it unlock.

Match Classes Between Blades and Drivers

Both blades and drivers have classes they can be part of. There are three main classes: Healer, Attacker and Tank. You can’t change a driver’s class, but you can certainly do so for a driver. A driver’s class is determined by the blades that driver has equipped. Pyra, for instance, is an attacker, meaning Rex is an attacker by default. This gives Rex a boost to attack, and the more attacker-type blades you equip, the stronger the boost.

Your party can contain three characters, each with up to three blades of their own that they can switch between freely during battle. Blade combos are a massive part of winning battles, and the easiest way you can make sure to pull them off is by trying to have as many elements at your disposal as posible. Most combos switch between three diffferent elements, so you’ll want to stack the deck in your favor as much as possible. Pyra’s fire element can combo with earth and water in a number of different combos, for instance.

Buy (and Use) Pouch Items

Rex and party each have an item pouch that can hold a single item. Depending on what you put in there, you can achieve various results. Each item has a time limit before it’s used up and your pouch is once again empty.

More importantly, each character has a favorite item type and a favorite item within that type. Experiment with different items to increase the trust between your drivers and blades, which will in turn help you unlock your blades’ abilities faster.

Selling items seems like a standard way to get some much needed cash in your party’s hands, but you should hold on to as much as you can. Rather than selling your items piecemeal, sell them in sets at Exchange Shops all over Alrest. Exchange Shops have sets of specific items they’re looking for and will pay far more. You’ll also receive boosters when you sell your salvage this way, which is very important when bonding with blades. Boosters help decide the element of the blade you’ll receive.

Whenever you find yourself in a town, refine any aux cores you can. There’s no one-size-fits-all loadout for a blade, so it’s important to have an aux core ready to deal with any situation you may run into. All the scrap you find will come in handy here. The rarer the aux core, the rarer the material you’ll need. Even if a core doesn’t seem useful, you’ll almost certainly find a use for it later on.

Luck is one of the most important stats in the entire game. As you progress through the game, you’ll unlock the ability to use core crystals in order to bond with new blades. The quality of that blade is determined by your lack stat, meaning you’ll want to boost it as much as possible before you use a rare core crystal. Each character has a skill on their affinity tree that can grant them a boost to luck. Unlock these as early as possible to get the best blades you can. Before bonding with a blade, equip any of your existing blades with aux cores that add luck for the best chance.

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