Oddities

This is a sub-page of Xenoblade Chronicles.

Models#

Homs Fiora Comparison#

Bizarrely, both versions of Homs Fiora (before the Mechon attack, and during the game's ending) aren't using the same body model. Fiora's arm cuffs get longer, her leg shading changes, her legs get marginally stubbier and thicker, and her necklace is placed lower.

All playable characters in-game are stored in body parts, meaning that Fiora's head is stored as a body part as well - save for this cutscene, which uses a completely separate model with the new body and hair melded.

The reason for this change is unknown.

Xekit#

In-game	Actual Model

Xekit's icon for the Affinity Chart depicts her with teal accents, but she appears with purple accents in-game. Likely as a result of a developer oversight, her actual model (100819038.brres, np302605) isn't assigned to either her, or any other Machina NPC in FLD_npclist.xls, and she instead uses Prox's model. Her actual model can be seen briefly during the cutscene where Meyneth (in Fiora's body) explains the history of Mechonis.

Eks Jaw Oddity#

The Eks that appear in Makna Forest and Valak Mountain both have a bone on their model labelled "JUjaw", despite the fact that they don't have any apparent jaw, and even though several of their animations use this bone, it has no visible effect on the model. However, upon closer inspection of the Eks's model, it appears to have a jaw, and it appears the JUjaw bone was never mapped to it. The Barg enemies found in the sunken Prison Island, which are essentially remodelled Eks with exactly the same bones and animations, do have jaws and make use of this bone.

Bionis#

To do: Upload images.

The model of Bionis that can be seen on the Fallen Arm has several locations, such as Eryth Sea and Colony 6 modelled out, but the model itself is too far away for these details to be seen normally.

Cutscenes#

Valak Mountain Cutscene Oddities#

During the Mumkhar encounter cutscene, at the point where Dunban charges at Mumkhar, Melia's arm can be partially seen. If one moves the camera with Dolphin's Free Look, she is fully loaded during this scene, although she doesn't animate beyond standing there. This is especially notable as Xenoblade doesn't fully render any characters that aren't in the current scene. For instance, if the game zooms in on Shulk for a moment in a cutscene, no other character models will be rendered, as you normally wouldn't see them.

To do: Get GIF or video of this.

During the same cutscene, at the part where Mumkhar holds the unconscious Fiora hostage, he is fully animated when he says "So what's it to be weaklings? Grovel at my feet and beg?". But halfway through his dialogue, he turns his head away from the camera, leaving the rest of his face animation unseen.

Sword Valley Cutscene Oddity#

The upper part of Mumkhar's face is animated during the beginning of the cutscene where the party encounters him in the Heavy Machine Depot, but the camera doesn't pan above his mouth.

Dickson's True Form Reveal Scene Oddity#

To do: Find out how to remove that stupid flashback filter so we can actually see the characters at native resolution, and restore the vid.

In the cutscene right after Shulk fails to kill Egil and Dickson shoots Shulk in the back, there is a brief flashback showing Dickson's Giant form. During this scene, if one rotates the camera and either zooms in close or increases the resolution, it becomes apparent that Lorithia and Alvis are behind Dickson!

This means that Lorithia and Alvis were, at one point at least, intended to be visible in that brief glimpse.

The scene in question, with panning and increased resolution to show Alvis and Lorithia, can be viewed here.

Scrapped Power Up! Alternate Quest Route#

The quest Power Up! requires 5 Silver Antol Fibres to complete. However, it would appear that at one point this quest required an additional item to be completed, or at least was planned to have an alternate route.

After talking to Rakzet to start the quest, an enemy named Bright Wisp spawns on Digit 3 of the Fallen Arm at night if the weather is cloudy. This enemy drops the key item Strong Lubricant Oil, which is otherwise unobtainable. Unlike other quest-exclusive enemies, the Bright Wisp will respawn as long as the 5 Silver Antol Fibres haven't been collected, meaning the player can obtain as many Strong Lubricant Oils as they wish. The Bright Wisp's appearance and the Strong Lubricant Oil are not mentioned in the quest description, nor is it required to defeat it and obtain the item to finish the quest.

If the player has the Strong Lubricant Oil in their inventory when they complete the quest, it will be removed. However, if more than one was collected, only one will be removed from the inventory.

Hode Texture Name#

The textures for the Orluga-riding Hodes are named "jawa" internally, a reference to the alien species from the Star Wars franchise.

Memory Space#

After defeating Dickson, you teleport to a strange space. This area is referred to as Memory Space in the game's code, but you cannot save or access the map in this area. It doesn't even have a spot in the area select screen! The only way to view the area's name is to use a "Save Anywhere" cheat.

Nopon Tower#

The Nopon on Nopon Tower in Frontier Village have dialogue that is impossible to see normally as they're too high up for the player to reach. While these Nopon can be reached, they can only be accessed by jumping off a very specific part of the Middle Housing Level. Said jumping point has an unfinished branch and is made with a 2D sprite, rather than a model, so it can be easily inferred that the player is not intended to reach this spot normally.

Purple Nopon#

Me make sure to tell everybody what me sees from here. Me is like information node!

All Nopon love rumours. Word spreads quickly here. Me is source of information about you lot too!

Other Purple Nopon#

What way friends get to here? Did friends climb up? You not mean to say you fell here?!

If you are so brave then do guard duty instead of me! Me first one to get eaten if Makna monsters come!

Blue Nopon#

Nopon Tower was brought back here by Dunga all by himself! That was magnificent.

Hehehe! It is the truth! When me was slip of a lass, me saw it with very own eyes.

Pink Nopon#

No way! Really? Does the Chief really have that much strength?

In that case Chief Dunga must be ripped under his clothes! Ugh! Me can't imagine it!

Max-Level Character Stats#

The "BTL_pclist" table defines party members' starting and level 99 stats. However, when party members actually reach level 99, their stats are only somewhat close to these defined values.

When characters level up, this is the formula used to determine their new stats, repeated once for every level they need to go up by:

newStat = floor((floor(((stat_lv99 - currentStat) * 120) / (120 - (currentLevel + 1))) + 25) / 50) + currentStat

As may be visible, this formula appears to treat the maximum level as 120 rather than 99, and characters do indeed reach the defined stats if the formula is applied that far (though going all the way to 120 gives division by zero). Perhaps this is intentional - characters at the highest levels by this formula would level up with no stat changes due to rounding, and it was preferred to have at least some improvement at all levels.

Unseen Enemy Crystal Types#

Every enemy in the game has a crystal type defined (e.g. Dragon, Apis) which affects the name of the crystals they drop. This even applies to enemies which cannot drop crystals normally, such as bosses, dummy enemies and ones that always drop cylinders, with most of these having their crystal type set to the default White. Some enemies which are incapable of dropping crystals have their crystal type set as something other than White, and as such are listed here.

Mecha-Mumkhar's Arts#

Mecha-Mumkhar has an art called Massacre Lotus, an 8-hit physical Art that instantly kills the target if they're toppled. He will never choose to use it unless his target is toppled or he's forced to change arts via the vision mechanic. However, his art that inflicts topple - Super Spin - is bugged so that it instead inflicts topple on himself. (Some arts need this feature so they can inflict different statuses on the target and on the user.) As a result, Massacre Lotus and its animation are almost never seen, and commonly believed to be unused.

The bug with Super Spin is fixed in the Definitive Edition, and Massacre Lotus is used as intended.

Monado Ether Arts Versus Toppled People#

Normally, the Monado I cannot hurt people, and attacks on them simply rebound. Ether attacks cannot rebound, so they miss ("resist") instead. However, it is impossible to miss a toppled enemy under any circumstances. As a result, if Shulk uses an ether art on a toppled person with the Monado I, it damages them normally. This is presumably a bug with the order of operations; logically, the Monado shouldn't be able to hurt toppled people just because it's via an ether attack.

Because this interaction requires Shulk to use an ether attack on a person with the Monado I (which means it can't be NG+), the only two opportunities to see it are when fighting the five High Entia assassins in the Whitewing Palace and fighting Tyrea in the Tomb. At this time, his only ether attack is Monado Purge, though presumably Cyclone and Eater would also work if he could somehow have them at this time.

This likely also works against dazed foes, though the necessary timing makes it very difficult to test, and the party cannot daze without topple unless Dunban has Thunder from being a good chunk overlevelled for this point in the story.