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The Xenoblade games are massive in more ways than one, andXenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Editiontakes that to the extreme. Every aspect of the game is supersized, from the giant mechs to the seamless world and its various vicous indigens. But the city of NLA is sprawling as well, packed with life of various species.
Every single person you meet, your own party members and even you included, are tracked in the Affinity Chart. This is a returning feature from the original Xenoblade, and shows the relationships between all the characters in the game. This works a bit differently in X, so let’s get into all of its various functions.
What Is The Affinity Chart?
Like everything with Xenoblade, there’s no point in doing things in a simple way when you could just do it differently. So rather than giving you character profiles for every character, it is instead placed on one massive chart, withvarious lines connecting every single character. This goes for every named NPC you meet, as well as you and your companions.
For you and your party, it shows the affinity between you both, and is the best way of tracking how much it has been raised so far. Beyond this, it alsoshows the links between every other character, whether they are friends, rivals, or even if the relationship they have is one-sided. You can track every connection any character has by selecting them in the chart, and choosing from the known connections.
Connections are formed in various ways.Once a character is spoken to, they are added to the chart. Sometimes, they will start disconnected until you learn of someone they are connected to. If they are brought up in conversation but you don’t know them yet, then just a silhouette will be shown, but the connection will be formed.
This all makes it easier to track all of the characters in the world, andhelps flesh out the general relationships of the people on Mira. However, just like reality, relationships are not stagnant. As the game advances,many of these relationships can change, with characters fixing their relationships, new people being introduced, or characters dying altogether. As such, you shouldn’t stop speaking with a character just because you’ve registered them to the chart.
Does The Affinity Chart Effect Gameplay?
So this is an interesting one. In a strict sense, no.The Affinity Chart is almost entirely flavour textto build out the world and give you a better idea of how everything and everyone connects. In fact, you could go the entire game ignoring the Affinity Chart if you wanted. It is, for the most part, completely inconsequential to general play.
However, it can lead you to other parts of the game. For one,it shows you the Affinity between yourself and your various party members. While this isn’t the only way to check it, it is the best way of visualising it. On top of that, certain missions will not appear in the world until the character offering it or someone involved in the mission is registered. This is rare, but one of the few times when the Affinity Chart does reflect on gameplay.
Aside from that, it can often allude to later missions, and give you hints as to how you should proceed. For example,speaking with Letrick at the Cathedral will have him speak about Maisieand the cult she is making, preparing you for the fact that she is willing to go to any lengths to preserve it.
Other Players On The Affinity Chart
Another interesting aspect of the Affinity Chart, and one that is locked to online play, is the presence of other players on it. You might notice when playing online that there is a ring of characters formed around the outer rim of the Affinity Chart,composed exclusively of other real players. So what exactly do they do?
In the original Wii U release, the otherreal players that would appear here were based on those you performed squad missions with, and became a permanent fixture on the Affinity Chart, assuming you remained online. This was lost when the servers shut down, and so its fucntion has been limited in the Definitive Edition.
Now,the players that appear on the Affinity Chart are all those that are in your current squad. These players will remain on the chart even after you go offline, though they will be replaced by a new set of players as soon as you join a new squad. From here, you can check out the players real name and avatar name, and can check out their equipped skills, weapons and armour. This isn’t much different from just checking them out in the Squad menu, but it is presented in a much more visually interesting manner.
How To Fill The Affinity Chart
Filling the Affinity Chart is a monumentous task, and there is no one way to do it. Just like in Xenoblade Chronicles 1,the Affinity Chart has certain links you may miss entirely, and in some regards has optional links that are made based on your choices in quests. Ultimately, that means you cannot achieve a full version of the Affinity Chart in a single playthrough, as there are multiple ways it can be completed, with slightly different links to finish it.
That said, one could argue thatthe most complete version of the Affinity Chart is one with the most links possible, and with as many characters alive as possible. Beyond that, any remaining links will come down to personal preference. Here are some tips to get started:
Beyond these general tips,most other links are made during missions, or as the result of certain dialogue options. However, some of these links can be hard to establish, with one wrong dialogue option allowing you to miss out on a link that you might logically think would be established anyway. Here are just a few to keep an eye out for:
There are plenty more beyond this, but they are too small and innumerable to list them all. The most important thing is tobe proactive, and also to make frequent saves in the event you come up against a choice that may or may not result in a new link on the Affinity Chart.
