193 xenoblade - bionis' interior collectopaedia page

Dear Readers,

The Bionis' Interior Collectopaedia page was very small and I hadn't found anything from there yet.

It's a strange place. It's very small, yet has its own page and we only use it as a passage so far.

192 xenoblade - satori marsh collectopaedia page

Dear Readers,

Now to fill in the Satori Marsh page of the Collectopaedia.

There was one veg I didn't find yet. Otherwise, I found everything else.

Reyn and Dunban named a coulple of things here.

I'll do the other collectopaedia entries later because I'm getting bored and drowsy.

191 xenoblade - filling in the ether mine page of the collectopaedia

Dear Readers,

Now to fill in the Ether Mine page of the collectopaedia.

There were a couple of things Sharla named before going for her shower. One of the parts I haven't obtained yet, so I didn't finish the page.

I can't explore the whole mine right now for some reason. NEXT!

190 xenoblade - filling in the colony 6 page of the collectopaedia

Dear Readers,

Now for the Colony 6 page of the Collectopaedia.

I filled the whole thing in and got rewards. One of the items was a corgi dog, which was kind of weird. It just looks like any other item really.

Another dull task done. NEXT!

189 xenoblade - filling in bionis' leg page of collectopaedia

Dear Readers,

Now to fill in the Bionis' Leg page of the Collectopaedia.

Mostly uninteresting sounding vegetables. There was stuff that Reyn and I named. Slightly amusing I suppose. NEXT!

188 xenoblade - filling in the tephra cave collectopaedia

Dear Readers,

I went filling in more of the collectopaedia, this time from Tephra Cave.

This time there was an animal section. Each entry made a mouse squeak and had a mouse icon, even though they weren't all mice.

I filled in the whole page and got rewards for it. Hooray!

I like how it mentions that Fiora or Dunban named some of the items.

187 xenoblade - doing some gem crafting to clear out inventory

Dear Readers,

It took me three months to get back into playing this game again. Between November 2023 and now, February 2024. There was Christmas and a lot of stress and everything, but it was always somewhere in the back of my mind that I wanted to do and I wanted to continue keeping a diary of it too. Anyway, let's continue.

I got Sharla and Reyn to do some gem crafting because I wanted to raise their affinity and to clear out excess inventory.

I did this quite a few times and made gems and cylinders and whatever else. It didn't feel fun to do at all and it just felt like doing excessive busywork. Excessive busywork can be fun but this particular thing is just not fun and feels pointless.

Anyway, it didn't raise their affinity level so again I'm confused and annoyed.

At the very least I managed to clear out some inventory.

Let's continue and hope I get less confused and annoyed.

186 xenoblade - starting to fill in the collectopaedia

Dear Readers,

I took a bit of a break from the game again but I'm going to continue with something a little different.

I've been thinking of gem crafting, raising affinity levels, and generally getting rid of that excess material from my inventory. I'm tired of being told I'm over encumbered.

I spent forever looking for the gem crafting in the menus and finally found it under items.

Before I checked it I went into the collectopaedia. I then learned that I had to manually fill in the spaces! Even though I already had the item!

I went on to fill in the collectopaedia page 100% for Colony 9. Some of the descriptions were nice to read. There weren't any individual illustrations though. I got some random rewards for filling in categories and the page.

It was a simple task and I had already collected a crap ton of stuff from randomly wandering around picking up any old thing.

I'll continue filling in pages later. I'm going to take my time with this. This game just constantly feels overwhelming.

To be honest I've been absolutely dreading coming back to this game. The only thing I'm enjoying in it right now is the music.

185 xenoblade - bashing arena orlugas

Dear Readers,

Next quest was Monster Quest 2 - Part 3. Bash 3 Arena Orlugas near Precipice Bridge in Makna Forest.

I was already in the area so I hunted for them. One was on the bridge with other Orlugas so we had to beat them as well. The other two were on the east side with those Hode thingies. We bashed until we got the quest done.

Next quest please. We picked up some masks that were for another quest so that's nice.

184 xenoblade - bashing ammos orlugas

Dear Readers,

I'm only in the mood to do very simple stuff right now so for this post I'm focusing on the Monster Quest 2 - Part 2 from Frontier Village, which is about bashing 2 Ammos Orlugas near Precipice Bridge in Makna Forest.

Unlike the quest from the last post, there was nothing confusing about this. I found one of those big dudes soon enough and bashed him. I had one defeated already so I just needed the one. Quest done.

Next quest, next post.

183 xenoblade - "sparkling pool" is not the same as "shining pond"

Dear Readers,

We decided to get the filtered water for Rasha for her nieceypon Cherri. We went to the Sparkling Pool... or at least we thought we could go there, but it turns out we hadn't discovered it yet and we were completely mixed up between the Sparkling Pool in Makna Forest and the Shining Pond in Satori Marsh. What a headache.

I didn't even know this until I warped back to Satori Marsh and found that out. I wandered around Makna Forest like a fool trying to find it too.

A shining pond is a type of sparkling pool so of course that's confusing. Everything's just loads of the same thing in this game. I got so bored and annoyed I turned the game off for the rest of the day.

182 xenoblade - bana's secret egg for gadada

Dear Readers,

We had a brief chat with Rasha who mentioned she was an old friend of Bokoko in Satori Marsh. That's nice.

Bana had a quest for us. He asked us to bring a Monster Egg from the forest to the village so they could train it themselves. He asked us to give the egg to Gadada. We agreed to go to the Twisted Tree Gate and get it.

We warped to the area, ran through the shallows and around the path that led towards the egg. Then we warped back to the village with it.

We found Gadada on 4F, the pollen works sometime after 6AM. He was delighted with the egg and told us to keep it secret and only tell Bana.

We caught up with Bana on the ground floor at night and he was happy with the news, saying the Nopon future was secure, whatever that meant.

I was happy too. Melia had a thought bubble that said seeing me happy made her feel warm. I asked her why she was staring. Oooo! Something there between Shulk and Melia?

181 xenoblade - curing tati's cough

Dear Readers,

We went to the Hode area in Makna Forest and hunted them for their camouflage drops. We got them in no time at all.

The Orlugas near them got involved too. We had to defeat some of them for quests too.

We had enough and headed back to the village to bring the drops to Tati. He was delighted and his cough even went away! Wow, that's some really good warm material to cure a cold like that. Sounds magical even.

With that solved we went back to Pipiki, who was much happier now that the spooky noises were gone. The link between him and Tati was labelled "Weird Songs".

180 xenoblade - investigating what spooked poor pipiki

Dear Readers,

We found out what the noise was that was freaking out Pipiki. It was Tati singing while he was working underground.

When we spoke to Tati, he said his voice got really weird because he got a cold. He asked us to grab 3 Hode Camouflages from Hodes in Makna Forest.

Well, that's that. It wasn't some spooky monster or anything. Just a spooky sounding cold. We'll hunt for that stuff later.

179 xenoblade - discovering bridge four isn't there

Dear Readers,

I decided to explore the area northwest of Bridge Three. On the way there we came to another bridge, or what was left of it anyway.

This bridge was out and I didn't realise it wasn't there until I walked right off the cliff and fell way down into the river! That was pretty stupid of me but we had a good landing and it was pretty funny. Had a good laugh at least.

It seems on the other side there's an entrance/exit to another area. Maybe we'll get to explore later.

178 xenoblade - beating up mount tortas for pachipa and gerugu

Dear Readers,

Pachipa at the archaeology centre during the daytime had a quest for us.

She said her dadapon worked on the Bionis' Leg with Nopon Merchants but turtles stole his things and caused a lot of trouble for him. We then learned that her father was Gerugu! Or were we reminded? I'm not sure if we already established that earlier. It's very hard to tell with some of these characters. We agreed to bash 2 Mount Tortas on the Bionis' Leg. Those huge things? Were we ready?

She told us they were at Vanilla Hill. She wasn't sure though. I think she meant Viliera Hill. We went there and saw the Mount Torta which was LV32. We picked a fight with this huge creature we used to steer clear of.

The fight went very well and we even found a second one nearby. It took a small bit of time but it was no real trouble, aside from all the clunky warping to get to the area.

We got back to Pachipa and she said she got a letter from her dadapon saying all was well. She thanked us. All was well now with her and the link between her and her dad was one of relief.

177 xenoblade - warping clunkily for lupa and satata's elixir

Dear Readers,

We warped clunkily back to Satori Marsh to obtain the poison stuff from the big poison frog brogs.

We found one and obtained its drop after defeating it easily. I had Sharla and Melia and since they fight from a distance, they stood in the poison swamp, which wasn't great. Must keep that kind of thing in mind for the future.

We had all the materials we needed for Lupa's secret elixir now. We warped clunkily back to the village and went to see her at Riki's House.

I found Lupa, not at Riki's House but at the archaeology centre. Wish the quest would've told me that and save me the grief of finding her. Luckily, she was only a couple of levels up.

She thanked us for the ingredients and made some elixir. She then asked us to take it to her grampypon Satata in Colony 6.

We warped clunkily to Colony 6 and made it daytime.

He was delighted to see us, took the elixir, and told us to go back and tell her... something I forget what it was.

We warped clunkily back to Frontier Village and made it nighttime. Lupa was delighted and was happy to hear how her Grampypon Satata was doing. She vowed to carry on his work and discover the secret of Makna. (Not Mana haha)

Someone here during the day has a quest. Will talk to them next time. It'll probably involve more clunky warping.

176 xenoblade - discovering the seahorse islet

Dear Readers,

I decided to explore the Lakeside area on the other side of the map, so off we went.

It was a small area so we then went for a swim around the lake. We went against the current and tried to fill in the map. The view of the Great Makna Falls was pretty nice! The rainbow that was cast looked spectacular as well! Just really nice.

We found some Hades Beetles along the way too for a quest.

There was a little beach on the right side of the area with big LV34 Makna Brogs. We beat some up for fun. No quest for them right now.

We went down river. We'll explore the rest of the lake later. There were shorelines all along with enemies.

We also met Fool Sardis, which are very nicely named. They're like piranhaxes but very feisty. We were well able for them with our healing abilities. It was able to inflict daze and all.

We picked a fight with the Agile Albatro, LV33. It was quite formidable with some big attacks. Really needed Melia's healing abilities here. We beat it in the end to complete a quest.

We then got all the Hades Beetles we needed. I checked the quest and it said we needed Potent Brog Poison from the Poison Brogs in Satori Marsh. Will visit there later.

Continuing downriver, we came across rocks, one of which was the Seahorse Islet, which was a secret area. Very nice discovery.

After this were a few items in the river current before it ended in an endless abyss. I wondered where it went and curiosity killed the cat haha. It goes right off the world.

I'm enjoying the game a bit more now that I'm exploring like this again. It got dull and laborious for a while. The initial gameplay draw for me was the exploring after all so this is good!

175 xenoblade - rasha wants to be closer to her nieceypon cherri

Dear Readers,

While we were in the village I noticed Rasha had a quest. She said her nieceypon Cherri didn't seem to want to spend time with her. Rasha wanted to be close to her though because she was her only relative. Aw...

We asked for more details and she said Cherri's mom wasn't around anymore so she would like to be like a mamapon to her. Sharla suggested a present or something she needed and then Rasha remembered Cherri needed Filtered Water. We agreed to get it for her. It needed to be gathered from the Sparkling Pool in Makna Forest from dawn to dusk.

That was sad about the sister passing away. I'd like to help bring the aunt and niece closer together.

174 xenoblade - observing the hodes and their orlugas

Dear Readers,

Back to exploring. We used the network of bridges to access a hard to reach area to the north of the Clear Waterfall. There wasn't anything particularly special there, day or night. Maybe a quest takes place there later? I dunno.

We then went south and discovered Precipice Bridge. In this area we saw more Orluga variants and these little guys called Bois Hodes.

We found lots of Kelp Mushrooms in this area and finished that quest for Kofuko at the Sacred Altar.

We discovered the Hode Lair, guarded by two Orlugas and the Abyss Basin nearby.

Lots of Orlugas and Hodes were frolicking about here. It seems like the little Hodes have the giant Orlugas tamed like beasts, which was interesting to see.

This entire part of the forest was explored now, so we went back to cash in with Kofuko.

After searching in the affinity chart (he's in the bottom left), we found him near the Sacred Altar at night. He was happy with the mushy mushrooms but was sad his teeth were so bad he couldn't eat the chewy ones anymore. Aw... 

We had something else to talk to him about. The water under the altar was bad and it was because of him. He wanted ingredients to make it good and gave us suggestions.

Suddenly I got a vision of Migaga tasting something really sweet, saying she didn't like Jollyade. The others didn't like it either and they were feeling dizzy and sick. Yikes... better not mess it up.

I had the choice of the easy-to-find 4 Walnut Grapes or the rare delicacy 2 Bitter Kiwis. I agreed to the quest generally. It was weird he wanted to make alcohol in the water under the altar.

It turns out I had the grapes at least. I better think about this one... maybe even look up a walkthrough for tips.

173 xenoblade - gathering pollen for dobadoba

Dear Readers,

We continued past Clear Waterfall until we got to Yellow Flower Grove. Some quest markers were here!

Some big Makna Elucas were here too. They didn't give any trouble though.

The markers were all for Yellow Pollen that Dobadoba wanted. We got the 5 and that part was done.

We trekked past the Decayed Forest where the Telethia was as well. Soon...

We went to see Dobadoba and he was delighted with the stuff.

He told us Gadada was fast and reliable and they had a teacher/pupil partnership. 

172 xenoblade - exploring clear waterfall

Dear Readers,

We continued fighting more Terra Orlugas until that quest was completed.

The Nopon who was angry for being stepped on was now satisfied because they got a letter saying the Terra Orluga was sorry. Wow. Didn't know those big guys could write.

We continued east and found a body of water. We fought a couple of Makna Ansels and they were tough enough but manageable. It was good to have someone who had an ability to put them to sleep. I think it was Melia.

This area came up as Clear Waterfall.

171 xenoblade - beating up itmos upa and wahpol sardi

Dear Readers,

We continued exploring the area near the Nopon Arch.

We completed the Itmos Upa quest by bashing enough of them. We also defeated the Wahpol Sardi for another quest. It was like a slightly stronger piranhax.

We beat up a Terra Orluga as well. They look scary but we're well able for them now. We'll beat more next time to fill up the quota for that quest.

The entire area between the Nopon Arch and the Twisted Tree Gate was now explored by us.

170 xenoblade - defeating makna piranhaxes, venaes nebula

Dear Readers,

I decided to pick 8 Kelp Mushrooms for Kofuko.

We picked a fight with LV34 Elder Gragus. It wasn't a good idea because we got killed. Oops.

We bashed some other monsters instead for quests, like local piranhaxes, upas and a Venaes Nebula.

The shallows near the Nopon Arch was a good spot for collecting items and fighting baddies. The piranhaxes were fearsome looking with their teeth but we were well able for them.

169 xenoblade - teaching ababa a nice lesson

Dear Readers,

We checked on Deki to see how he was getting on with his new friend, Ababa, but it seemed he wasn't happy since he had a quest.

The problem was, Deki liked bugs as friends, whereas Ababa liked bugs for eating. He wanted our help to teach him a lesson. We agreed to grab 2 lots of Green Eluca Juice, which we were told was very hot.

We took the juice to Ababa. He was nervous about drinking it and he found it very hot but he loved it. He said he'd recommend it to Deki. Uh-oh, looks like the plan backfired.

We went back to Deki...and by the way, Deki is up during the day and Ababa is up during the night, so we had to change the clock every time we wanted to speak to the other one, which was another tedious rigmarole.

The link on the affinity chart between them became one of outrage. Yikes. Deki was still very upset with Ababa for eating bugs, but he appreciated what we did for him.

168 xenoblade - gathering shield bugs for the bug fans

Dear Readers,

We went hunting for Shield Bugs in Makna Forest. We already had two, just needed one more.

We went straight to the branches we used to get to ? and found another of them in the same place. Then we went back to the village to see Ababa.

We spoke to Ababa, then we had to speak to Kokora. I cursed and swore out loud trying to find Kokora but I eventually found her at the entrance to the village.

She said Ababa and Deki became friends with their common interest being insect fans. Hooray!

But yeah, finding a specific little Nopon in this huge village is not fun.

167 xenoblade - fetch quests for dobadoba and lupa

Dear Readers,

Chatting with more Nopon for quests in their village.

Dobadoba on 4F talked about pollen orbs and was very passionate about it. We agreed to grab 5 lots of Yellow Pollen at Yellow Flower Grove in Makna Forest for him. Things were a bit dangerous for them to do it. He said Yellow Flower Grove was out of Windmill Pavilion and upstream towards the waterfall before taking a right. Whew.

We met Dabidabi who was gonna jump off from a great height into the water. He was on 7F.

Lupa had a quest for us. She wanted us to bring her grampypon in Colony 6 some Secret Nopon Elixir, provided he was still alive. She also wanted us to help her gather ingredients for it. We accepted all that. She wanted us to find 5 Hades Beetles, 3 All-Seeing Eyes(which we had), and 2 lots of Potent Brog Poison from Poison Brogs in Satori Marsh. The rest were in Makna Forest.

Dedeba had praise for Bana and this updated in the affinity chart.

Chatting to NPCs here is exhausting. They're all tiny and look the same, some have quests, most don't have quests but may affect the affinity chart so I have to chat to them twice in a row... they're spread across all these little floors in the big tree and I haven't gone below or outside to talk to the other ones yet to see if they have any more quests themselves...

I've only chatted to a few since we came back and already I feel like I've done a long day's work.

Oh, and another thing, they have different schedules depending on if it's day or night. Whew...

I used to love day/night cycles in RPGs. Why are they so tiresome now?

166 xenoblade - pipiki spooked by scary noises

Dear Readers,

We hung around the Nopon village as they had more quests for us.

Pipiki on 1F Was scared because he heard ghosts at night apparently. He wanted us to find out what that noise was below his house. We agreed to help him.

Kuriku was talking to him and was upset with Pachipa, as she called her a roly-poly. This appeared on the affinity chart. Not nice...

Migaga was at the spring fountain thing and said there was a sweet smell somewhere. I suddenly got a vision of Migaga talking about a funny smell that made her dizzy and feel sick. It was alarming. I asked her more about it. She said it smelled like a certain drink her hubbypon Kofuo likes. We agreed to investigate the smell before everyone got sick from it. "OK Marriage" appeared on the affinity chart between them.

More chatting later.

165 xenoblade - beat up 5 makna elucas for rasha and cherri

Dear Readers,

We went back to Makna Forest to explore and beat up more enemies.

We came across a Makna Ansel and beat it up. Not sure if it was rare or not.

We discovered Bridge Two and crossed it to explore the lands on the other side.

We beat 5 Makna Elucas, so we had to go see Cherri to complete the quest.

We also discovered Bridge Three.

Cherri asked us why we bashed the creatures and told us to tell Rasha to mind her own business. We did that and Rasha said she needed to learn manners. She was thankful though. A link called "Irritating" came up between them.

Again, I was only able to find them thanks to talking about them on previous blog posts. Whew...

Just saw that there other quests from the Nopon here in the village so I'll hang around and chat with them.

164 xenoblade - satata thanks us for his brotherpon

Dear Readers,

We went back to Satata in Colony 6 after carrying out the quest based on a departed loved one. He was very thankful.

After we did this, he started talking about what to do for the farm.

That was pretty much it, so we went back to Makna Forest for more exploration. Someday we'll be able to upgrade Colony 6 some more.

163 xenoblade - exploring makna forest with sharla and melia

Dear Readers,

We went back to Makna Forest in order to explore it and complete more quests. I also tried having Sharla and Melia in the party for a while to raise their affinities with one another for another quest from way back in Colony 9.

Pretty soon I found an Ash Fox which finished another quest.

We went exploring the overgrowth of the forest to beat more enemies and obtain items for other quests. 

At one point I got a vision of Sharla talking about getting the second lot of Green Eluca Juice for a quest. She wondered if Deki expected Ababa to drink something so strong.

We found a path to go up a tree where a Jungle Quadwing was waiting for us. It knocked me down off the tree but the others were able to finish it off. We had enough of them beaten to complete a quest too which was nice.

Up in the branches of the tree there were items for quests and I kept falling off because of other party members were getting in the way. Yeesh!

This path up the tree allowed us to access a tunnel that led all the way to a secluded cliff. From that point there was yet another little tunnel that led to an even more secluded cliff. This was called the Divine Sanctuary. We picked on some Vangs along the way. I wouldn't have been able to find this without the map! Hard to notice anything with all the dense overgrowth in the way.

While up here, night fell and I got a vision of Dunban collecting four benign crickets. He wondered what kind of offering Pipiki wanted to make with these.

A part of the cliff jutted out and it was the area Satata was talking about when he wanted me to cast the mushroom cap. I said rest in peace to the departed member of his family and did what he wanted me to do. It was a nice thing to do. I'll catch up with him later to mark the quest complete.