Xenoblade Chronicles 2

In Xenoblade Chronicles 2, a boy, his Blade, and his landlord travel a dying world, where everyone is British, to reach Elysium. It's also the sequel to the beloved Wii JRPG Xenoblade Chronicles, if the title didn't tip you off already.

Think you can take it? You won't forget it.

Prerelease Info Notes Bugs Unused Graphics

Insta-kill Button Combination#

Likely a leftover from development testing. Instantly kills the characters, with a shining beam of light shooting underneath the leader driver as it happens. To activate it, hold ZL + ZR + L + R + X + D-Pad Down for ~5 seconds (150 frames). Can be activated in the middle of cutscenes or while talking to NPCs. Interestingly, can be used to activate an effect similar to that of the "Zombie Hover" glitch encountered in Wind Waker speedrunning, as you can use it to negate all fall damage.

Internally, it is known as an "emergency escape" sequence.

Debug Overlay#

The Xenoblade engine provides debug drawing utilities in the fw::debug namespace. Many parts of the game's code calls its functions (particularly fw::debug::drawFont), but most of those are either unused or uncalled. However, calling any of the draw functions with game mods can show their use.

Unused models#

Cylinder drop#

All the models with names that start with oj20 are "drops": collectibles, money, potions, and so on. The model oj200034 is what appears to be a salvaging cylinder, modelled at a similar angle as other drops (rather than being axis-aligned). It is reasonable to assume that at one point, enemies or chests could contain cylinders that would drop, and this would be such model. It's currently unknown whether the model is still "hooked up" internally and thus able to appear if the game is modded for a cylinder drop to happen.

Early Ancient Ship#

oj108004 does not load properly when opened by most tools, but it can be pulled apart to discover that it's an earliy design for the inside of a Tornan ship. It's much like the one seen during the scenes of the bad guys plotting their evil deeds. While the model number (oj108xxx) indicates it would've been first used in chapter 8, it's unclear from the final plot how it would've fit in.

There are two facets to this model that make it very interesting.

First off, in the place where Lora's body would be in the final game, there is a Pyra. She's hung inside the middle crystal facing away from the door, with her arms behind her back. Most notable is that her Core Crystal is a design seen nowhere else, indicating this is a fairly old model from before it was changed to the final design. The Pyra is UV-unwrapped, but it doesn't match the layout of the final textures, and there are no known matching textures in the model.

Secondly, the textures are odd. One is design notes for a ship seen nowhere in the final game, but whose upper deck looks vaguely similar to the Ancient Ship seen in chapter 1. Two others would presumably for the interior model, but are not actually mapped in any logical way.

'...But what does it mean?' This game has text or audio that needs to be translated. If you are fluent with this language, please read our translation guidelines and then submit a translation!

Unused Enemies#

Unique Enemies#

Rambunctious Valcro#

This unique enemy appeared in Gormott during an E3 2017 gameplay demo but is nowhere to be seen in-game. Unlike the other unused enemies, Valcro has a listing on the enemy population table under "ma05a_b01_e3_2", with the naming of his entry implying he may have solely existed for the E3 demo. Despite being flagged as a Unique Monster, he has no drop table.

Relentless Armatan#

Another unused enemy intended for Gormott. Despite having a unique name, it is not flagged as a Unique Monster. Its name is very similar to the used Unique Monster Relentless Arduran, and they both happen to share the same level and are together on the enemy table.

Unused Bandits#

Two generic Drivers who despite their names are not Ardanian Soldiers. They're both flagged as story bosses and judging from their low levels and placement on the enemy table, they were likely meant to have been encountered somewhere on Gormott.

Unused Enemy Summons#

These enemies are Sovereigns that are part of summon ID 16, and were intended to be summoned by a variant of the Transfer Gate art. As said variant goes unused, it leaves no way of encountering these Sovereigns in-game. Aside from their names and lack of drop table, these Sovereigns are mostly identical to their regular counterparts. One of these unused Sovereigns never had their name translated.

Unused Items#

Unused Text#

Hidden Ending Captions#

Mythra and Pyra#

In the game's ending cinematic, Mythra or Pyra, depending on which you choose, will say something to Rex, but no voice line is played, and nothing is captioned. However, in the captions for this scene, located in the file Game\RomFS\bf\bdat\gb\bf10480100_ms.bdat, one can see that there are subtitles for this scene. They are simply hidden with a special tag that marks them as undisplayed. Removing the tag crashes the game.

The bolded text is used, for reference to where the lines would be used in the scene had they not been marked as hidden.

The subtitles are shown below.

"One Last You" Lyrics#

The lyrics to "One Last You" are written out in the game. However, they are marked as hidden and do not actually show on-screen.

Pneuma Skill Descriptions#

To do: Check if this text was translated into all languages.

Pneuma (the "ascended state" of the Aegis) has flavor text for her specials and her unique skills. This text goes unused because Pneuma can only be accessed in battle, not in the menu.

Her specials:

• Starburst - "Blast a merciless siren beam through enemies."
• Radiant Flare - "Attack hostiles with a light-speed attack."
• Genesis Saber - "Pierce enemies with countless light blades created by ether."
• Infinity Blade - "Unleash energy and sever the enemy with a sword of light."

All of these have "Adds a 60% chance of dealing a guard-annulling attack" as their additional effect, except for Infinity Blade, which is 100%. That chance could be higher at higher Affinity Chart levels, but those nodes go unused because Pneuma's chart cannot be developed.

Her skills:

• A Dream of the Future - "Can initiate elemental combo at random."
• The Chosen One - "Greatly enhances the Driver's abilities through the power of the Aegis."
• The Aegis - "Greatly enhances the party's abilities through the power of the Aegis."

Inaccessible Weapon Names#

Jin and pre-Aegis Rex are the two playable characters in the main story that fight without using Blades. Their weapons have names: Rex wields a Broadsword named Junk Sword, and Jin wields a Nodachi named Masamune. Due to implementation details, you can't see this information for Rex, and you can't open Jin's menu in the first place.

Malos and Sever in the Ancient Ship also wield a Sword Tonfa named Thanatos. You also can't open Malos' menu to see this, and this is a different Sever from the New Game Plus Sever that wields Bringer of the Winds.

Stunned Swallow Effect Description#

Although you can't access Jin's menu in any of his playable appearances in the main game, and thus cannot enhance his arts, there is a description of Stunned Swallow's unique effect that would be used if you were to select it in the Enhance Arts menu:

"Counters Driver Arts with [100]% of physical damage and Blowdown."

No other playable character has a Driver Art with this effect, so this text goes unused.

Unused Enemy Arts#

A lot of Arts (unique, variations, or clones) go completely unused.

Unique Unused Arts#

• Dark Force - A Wind-Element Ether art that inflicts Blowdown. Judging by its placement in the arts table, it was intended to be used for Eks enemies, as it is a slightly stronger variation of the already-used "Force of Nature".

Unused Art Variations#

All arts listed are identical to used variants except for the listed effect. Unused unnamed arts are not listed, as most of them appear to be auto-attacks.

• Horn Dive - Inflicts Knockback.
• Rock Dunk - Has half the damage ratio and inflicts Knockback.
• Earthy Tackle - Lower damage ratio.
• Pitfall - Earth-element.
• King Crawler - Force-inflicts Launch.
• Back Tail - Lower damage ratio. Strangely is listed as having a Range Type of "One Target", instead of "Behind", like the used variation.
• Transfer Gate - Summons three enemies: a Rom-Bol, a Gog-Bol, and an enemy that only has a debug name that translates to "Sowz (Provisional)", indicating it is some kind of test enemy. None of these three enemies are ever seen in-game, and are only listed in the Summon ID for this variant of Transfer Gate, leaving them unused. However, all three enemies are Sovereigns, indicating they may be unused variations of existing Sovereign enemies found in the World Tree.
• Security Kick - Higher chance to inflict Knockback, higher damage ratio.
• Emergence - This variant summons Svarm Appix. Judging by the name, it was meant to be used by the Svarm Nest in its quest battle, but the Nest has no arts assigned for it to use, leaving this variant unused. Svarm Appix are still used as part of the quest battle.
• Cold Era - Inflicts Driver Shackle. All Twin-Rings driver enemies use one of the two variants of this art, which resets the aggro they have towards party members. The Unique Monster Skyfist Remington uses a unique variant that inflicts Nullify Heal, but this variant goes unused.
• Ultra Bang-Bang - An unused variant that acts identically to the ones used by Rosa and Giga Rosa. Judging by its placement, it was meant to be used by True Rosa in her respective challenge battle. There is also another variant that does not have a Summon ID assigned to it.
• Elemental Copy - An unused Variant of the art used by Guldos that drains a full section of the party gauge.

There are also full unused movesets for Artifice Colossi and Ardainian Soldiers that are listed with arts for enemies found in the "Torna: The Golden Country" DLC.

Unused Sounds#

"Pythra!"

In Rex's blade callout lines, a voiceline for Pneuma exists. Presumably this would have been used as the callout name for the third Aegis forme before their real name was revealed, had the option of choosing between Pyra and Mythra not been implemented. Note that it is pronounced differently here (long "i") than in the cutscene at the beginning of Chapter 8 (short "i").

Unused Poppi α Intonations#

To do: There are also recordings in both intonations for the trash talk in the Chapter 10 illusion fight. Which one gets used?

The events of Chapter 4 give Poppi the ability to switch between her original α form and the new QT form. Additionally, although this is never acknowledged by the characters, Poppi begins to speak in a less robotic tone of voice after this point, even when she remains in Poppi α form. To implement this, the game has two recordings for every one of Poppi α's voice clips: an "a" take that is spoken in a monotone, and a "b" take that is spoken in an expressive, girly tone.

This includes the clips used for engaging Poppi α in the Engage Blades menu, and those used for switching to Poppi α. But since the tone change happens at the same time as Poppi QT becomes available, the monotone versions of these clips are never used.

"Poppi, powering up."

"Alpha by name, alpha by nature."

"Alpha mode activated."

On the flip side, there is an expressive take of Poppi's post-battle conversation with Vandham, which goes unused due to Vandham's departing before the tone change.

"Poppi is shaped like girl, but if Vandham *happy*, then Poppi is happy."

Callouts for Unusable Blade Arts#

Every Blade has a clip recorded for calling out every possible Blade Art, except for Draw Aggro. Most of these clips for rare/legendary Blades go unused, as each of these blades can only have certain Blade Arts.

As a representative sample, consider these clips of Pyra saying "Armor Veil" even though she cannot use Absorb Damage, and Dromarch saying "Focus" even though he cannot use Critical Up.

Pyra: "Armor Veil!"

Dromarch: "Focus!"

Even Poppi has unused callouts. Poppi α can't equip AC Recharge Boost, and thus will never say "Quicken Arts" in either of her intonations, and Poppi QT can't equip AC Damage Absorb, and therefore will never say "Armor Veil".

Poppi α: "Quicken Arts!"

Poppi QT: "Armor Veil!"

Element Callouts#

The five main Drivers all have two sets of lines referring to the eight elements, one in a "preparing" sort of tone and the other in a "using" sort of tone, sorted just after driver art lines. Notably, they each say completely different things for each of them, implying that whatever this was for needed strong distinction between who says what.

Revisional Differences#

Version 1.1.0#

Released on launch day, alongside DLC Item Distribution 1.

• Adds the event theater.
• Adds a Japanese voice option as free DLC for the US and European versions.
• Various balance and quality-of-life adjustments.

Version 1.1.1#

Released on December 22, 2017, alongside DLC Item Distribution 2.

• Fixes progression in five quests: "One Step Ahead", "A Young Man's Prize", "The Riddle on the Wall", "Failure and Success", and "Follow your Passion".
• Adds another size option for the minimap overlay.
• Mercifully grants an Easy mode for Tiger! Tiger!
• Adds the ability to open the skip travel menu by pressing X.

Version 1.2.0#

To do: Rip the audio for the Ardanian soldiers.

Released on January 18, 2018, alongside DLC Quest Distribution 1 and DLC Item Distribution 3.

• Fixes progression in the quests "The Riddle on the Wall", "Birds of a Feather", and "Precious Yearnings".
• A problem with Poppi's Skill RAM has been remedied.
• Voiceovers in the menus can now be skipped, which makes trust grinding far less tedious.

This update also brought a notorious undocumented change to the English dub: the Ardanian soldier dialogue edit. Their line "Think you can take me?" line was replaced with "Take this!" (clipped from their other line "Take a look at this!"), while the "Don't forget me!" line was shortened to "Don't forget!". Additionally, the frequency with which they speak during battle is heavily toned down.

Version 1.3.0#

Released on March 2, 2018.

This is a huge update that introduced New Game Plus, along with the ability to use seven of Torna's Blades after starting New Game Plus. It also fixed some issues with Perceval's Affinity Chart progression, tried to fix the "good deeds" issue with Perun's, fixed the "deal a certain amount of damage in one hit" chart condition, fixed the Trust progression of rare blades that had been released, and fixed a bug that would happen with too many Poppi parts. Additionally, Easy mode and DLC Item Distribution 4 were released. Finally, numerous quality-of-life improvements, like adding the ability to change the sort order on most menus,

Version 1.3.1#

Released on March 30, 2018. This fixed quite a few bugs:

• Resolves several issues with common Blades and New Game Plus.
• A softlock in New Game Plus if you didn't have enough money to buy the tutorial items was rectified by adding an NPC.
• The illusion fights in Chapter 10 are now based on Rex's level in New Game Plus (that way you can't just level everyone down to 1 and steamroll them).
• The Trust progression of rare blades that had been released was broken again.
• Quest progression: "Whereabouts Unknown," "Marvelous Mercenaries," and "We Meet Again."
• A regression where certain buffs had stopped working if the Blade that had them wasn't currently active in battle.
• Crafting multiple items at a time wasn't working.
• Location names weren't popping up.
• The minimap, compass, and skip travel with X would stop working sometimes.
• The menu wouldn't reflect Mythra's ether mod.
• Pressing ZL to change blades in the field went in the wrong order if Mythra was engaged.

The update also released DLC Quest Distribution 2, and started advertising the Expansion Pass (paid DLC) in the menu.

Version 1.4.0#

Released on April 27, 2018. This added T-elos and the DLC blade Poppibuster to the game, along with New Game Plus bards who trade bonus experience for rare Poppi parts. It also made Dagas stop disappearing when starting New Game Plus when he's engaged to the Master Driver, fixed progression on the quest "Limits of Awareness," fixed a regression where Lightspeed Flurry didn't proc on Specials, and added more sorting categories to the menus.

Version 1.4.1#

Released on May 24, 2018. Released DLC Quest Distribution 3 and fixed a game crash, among other minor bug fixes.

Version 1.5.0#

Released on June 14, 2018. Another huge update, this one added the DLC Challenge Battle mode, where you could fight extremely powerful superbosses and win costumes and amazingly broken equipment. You also got to use the new DLC blades, Shulk and Fiora.

Outside of Challenge Battle, this updated added a Unique Monster Subjugation Report, which keeps track of the fastest time for killing unique monsters on each difficulty level. It also added the options to auto-battle and to disable (regular) enemy aggression, and it fixed Perun's chart progression for real this time.

Version 1.5.1#

Released on July 27, 2018. This fixed a couple flaws in Challenge Battle; specifically, it fixed a softlock with Humanoid Alliance, and it made the snakes weaker on Easy mode in Attack of the Aspar (which actually doesn't make that challenge easier). It also added even more costume rewards, along with items that can max out Tora's Idea levels as Challenge Battle rewards.

The update also distributed the second DLC blade, Crossette, and added the hard mode "Bringer of Chaos" and the custom difficulty setting for those who bought the DLC. And if you bring Shulk or Fiora to Alrest, you have the option of playing You Will Know Our Names instead of the default unique monster music.

But if you didn't buy the DLC, at least the update let you craft the "Shackle Blade Resist" Skill RAM modules for Poppi.

Version 1.5.2#

Released August 24, 2018. This update distributed the DLC blade Corvin and added some new missions to Challenge Battle. There's one mission to get the last DLC blade, Elma, a second mission where you fight Elma and an army of ghosts, and a third mission where you are strongly recommended to wear the swimsuit items that were also conveniently introduced.

Version 2.0.0#

Released September 14, 2018. Fixed a bug where certain quests would freeze, fixed another bug where Elma couldn't Overdrive if you turned off auto-battle in the middle of a fight, released the Final Item Distribution DLC, and bolted Torna: The Golden Country onto the main menu if you bought the Expansion Pass.

Version 2.0.1#

Released October 18, 2018. Fixed Rex's outfit in the ending, fixed a bug where Dagas would change Drivers, and brought the associated copy of Torna: The Golden Country to v1.0.1.

Version 2.0.2#

To do: Were there any undocumented changes in this update?

Released November 30, 2018. To commemorate the first anniversary of the game and the release of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, this update distributed the "Massive Melee Mythra" aux core, which changes Mythra's design to the one used for her Spirit in SSBU (and gives Mythra an even higher critical hit rate).

Version 2.1.0#

Released September 2, 2020. Adds support for Korean.

Oddities#

Mistaken Identity#

Strangely, when Mòrag switches her active Blade to Brighid, she calls Dromarch's name instead of Brighid's. Mòrag cannot use Dromarch at all due to him being exclusive to Nia, and later Rex. This voice clip was later swapped out in version 1.3.0 for one of Mòrag correctly calling for Brighid.

Untranslated Dialogue#

To do: Screenshots located here from a reddit post. Find out if and when this oversight got fixed.

On the balcony overlooking the refugee camp in Indol at night, a female Gormotti NPC can be found. Talking to her reveals her dialogue was never translated into English.

Lora Comparison#

Lora's model in Torna received several minor changes compared to the one used in base XC2. Aside from the addition of her Battle Braid and knightly medal:

• Her armor is shaped slightly differently and has more details.
• The folds of her skirt have altered normals.
• The red circle on her back is now a more intricate design of red and pink diamonds.
• She now has black shorts covering her white underwear.

Hidden Blade#

While not unused per se, Rex (during his brief time wielding the Broadsword) and Jin are stealth-equipped with a Blade named Utsuro (虚ろ meaning "empty, vacant" in Japanese). In addition, the weapon class Jin uses is named Nodachi, which cannot be seen in-game.

Jin and Malos' Favorite Items#

Despite both of them only being in the party briefly and being unable to use Pouch items, Jin and Malos have favorite items defined. Jin likes Staple Foods and Seafood, with his favorite items being Oyster Stir-Fry and The Millenarian Titan. Malos likes Desserts and Art, with his favorite items being Grilled Anchortail and Argentum Noodle Soup.

While Jin later became fully playable in the game's prequel Torna: The Golden Country, his favorite items were changed.

Artifice Ophion Oddity#

Artifice Ophion, the Level 117 Superboss found at Gotrock Oracle Ruins during the final chapter of the game, has his Strength stat go "unused". On Normal difficulty, Ophion has 3,468 Strength and 1,907 Ether... except for the fact that Ophion only uses Ether arts and does not use auto-attacks in the conventional sense, instead using the "Plasma Cannon" Art due to its very fast recharge. This means that Ophion's Strength stat is pretty much completely unused.

Intro Credits#

The Japanese Intro Cutscene lists credits for Audio Direction to Shigeru Chiba, but this was replaced with blank text in the international versions. It seems however that at one point they were planning to credit the English voice directors here, as there are unused images with the names of the two English directors which use an older font.

Cutscenes#

This page or section needs more images. There's a whole lotta words here, but not enough pictures. Please fix this. Specifically: Rip the cutscene animations and make render gifs out of them.

Really Feeling It#

During the point before Shulk and Fiora walks towards Rex and the group, there is a unseen animation of Shulk taking a step which then he immediately steps back.