Ep 7 (S) - XBC2 - We DON'T Kill God in This JRPG!

Warning: LONG BOY.  Grab your drinks and popcorn and settle in, folks!

In this episode, I thoroughly summarize Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and discuss what I think are the most annoying parts of an otherwise extremely enjoyable replayable story-based game.  I love this game, not the least of which reason why is how involved and awesome the story is AND how it combines with Xenoblade Chronicles 1.  (EVEN THOUGH it was supposed to have nothing to do with XBC1!!)   I like this game, I like these characters, I like this story, I talk about it for nearly 2 hours.  Enjoy~!

Ending and Beginning links: 
Beg: https://youtu.be/v8FckEqIo1Q - Tantal Day Theme - ACE (I'm using this link as the YT poster links directly to where to buy the OST and explicitly names all 4 composers in the description)
End: https://youtu.be/TV0uYFPEkks - Elysium in the Dream - Yasunori Mitsuda (same as above)



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Twitter: https://twitter.com/VideoGameTirade
Email: videogametirade@gmail.com

Transcript

Hello, y'all, and welcome to Video Game Tirade, the show where I talk about video games and whatever they remind me of for about an hour, give or take. My name is AJ, and to start off with, right at the top, this episode is #NotSponsored, by anyone, so I get to use actual OST music from this game today! Woohoo! Check out the description and listen to the end to find out what that opening song was, because it's my favorite from this game.

Before we get into it, though, let's talk a little bit about what I've been playing the past little while. Last week's episode was about Yakuza 0, and I am still playing Yakuza Kiwami 1, the remake of Yakuza 1. You don't play those games in 1 week unless you're a vampire who doesn't sleep or you stream for a living. I am neither, so I'm still working on it. 90% of my 100% completion-list-plus-story run, and then Legend and cleanup, so almost done! I'm also playing Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity since the 2nd DLC came out last Friday, on October 29th, and man, I already have things to say about that game! Oh, boy! But this episode is not about either of those, it's instead about Xenoblade Chronicles 2, finally, as it's high time I talk about that game, especially since Chuggaaconroy's LP is wrapping up and I'm rapidly losing my desire to play it!

This episode is going to be another long boy like last week's, although with significantly more personal commentary, so grab your drinks and popcorn and strap on in! Let me just remind you really quick that I have a Patreon if you'd like to support me, and a Twitter and business email for talking with me! Today's Twitter hashtag will be #VGTAegis. Links to everything you need will be in the *gibberish* description of this episode, and that's gonna be it for my plugging today! Without further ado, let's get started on today's episode of Xenoblade Chronicles 2!

So this is a 10-chapter game, and the first, like any good starting chapter, introduces us both passively and explicitly to the rules and main characters of this story. This story takes place in a world called "Alrest," 1 "L," in which humanity coexists with and live on top of creatures called Titans that traverse the Cloud Sea that covers the entirety of the base of their world. The game introduces us to Rex to start off with, a young teenaged boy who works as a salvager, diving into the Cloud Sea to retrieve wreckage materials to sell for profit. The Titan he lives on is a draconic old fogey who Rex calls "Gramps," here in the beginning, and after a long day's work, Gramps and Rex witness off in the distance a mid-sized whale-like Titan calling its last before sinking forever beneath the sea. That's right: Titans die, just like humans do. Which means that eventually, when they all die out, humans would have no place left to live.

Cue Rex introducing the main focal point of this story, the creation mythos of this world: humans used to live at the top of the World Tree, located in the very center of the Cloud Sea, in a place called Elysium. Like the name suggests, it was paradise, no war or struggle could be had, and humans lived in peace alongside their all-father, the Architect. However, they were kicked out for some, eh, unexplainable reason, and just as they were about to all die, the Architect sent the Titans to help humanity survive. Rex believes, as do most children apparently, that Elysium really does exist, and if someone could find the way up to it, then surely everyone could live in peace again, instead of struggling for land and power and resources on rapidly-dwindling landmass.

I mentioned this in my very first episode, about a particular anime theme, but this game is an extremely-thinly-veiled metaphor for climate change. It doesn't really propose any solutions, other than "don't use weapons of mass destruction" - we'll get to that.

Rex, for all his lofty dreams, has no desire to actually go find Elysium, only to make enough money to support his family back in a region of the Cloud Sea called Leftheria. As he returns to port to sell his haul for the day, he gets notified from the guild's Chairman's assistant that the Chairman has a job for Rex specifically, as he is a salvager of some renown from Leftheria. When Rex goes to investigate, we get introduced to another pivotal bit of exposition about this world: Jin, Malos, Sever, Nia, and Dromarch. Blades and Drivers, capital-letter noun names. Drivers are a special people who can awaken and quote-unquote "wield" the humanoid weapons called Blades - in this group, Sever and Dromach are Blades, given away by 1 looking like a humanoid lizard, and the other being a talking white tiger. Blades are very special in that 1) they can only be awoken by very specific people, who have the special aptitude for becoming Drivers and 2) they are the only creatures that can harness the ether in the air and use it as they see fit. Obviously a very important and rare military ability.

Malos and Jin, the leaders of this little outfit, te-st Rex's skill for combat before explaining their mission: to retrieve an entire wreck from a here-to-fore uncharted section of the Cloud Sea. Rex agrees, lets Gramps know with a little bit of scolding at the lack of scrutiny, and then heads off with the Drivers and a multitude other salvagers from the guild.

Some time later, they get to the location and there's a pretty interesting scene of seeing exactly how salvagers do their thing, with time-delays floats and cranes and other relatively-ada- advanced machinery from what we've seen so far. The ship unearths, revealing itself to be very pointy and darkly wrought, and without a Titan to guide it, like almost all other boats in the world. Rex joins the Drivers and Blades to delve into the depths of the wreck, and after fighting off the creatures who made it home under-air (the Cloud Sea is technically air, not water, hence "Cloud") they come to a door sealed with a particular flame-like sigil. No one approaches except Rex, who is roughly told to do so. When he touches the sigil, it glows and separates, the door revealing a short hall with another sigil door at the end. Again, no one approaches except Rex who is commanded to do so. Once this second door is open do the rest of the group finally come forth.

Rex, as the fore, witnesses the scene first: A circular chamber, with a pillar in the center, holding what appears to be a coffin-like structure, with a girl inside. The girl has short red hair and red clothes that are rather revealing, I will admit. I personally prefer this girl to many of the other female designs in this game, but almost all of them are particularly displeasing from a feminine point of view. Anyways, the girl appears to be asleep, arms crossed over her chest. In front of the pillar, a few steps away from the door, is planted a mechanical-looking ruby-red sword with a green cross-shape pulsating in the hilt. As Rex sights the weapon, the pulsating syncs to that of a heartbeat and draws him in.

Malos calls out just as Rex is reaching out for it to keep his hands off, but the call startles Rex into brushing the blade. There is a resonance, the pulsating halting as a flurry of green sparks fly up. And then, before Rex can process what happened, Jin flies up behind him and "it's nothing personal's" him. For those not familiar with the trope, he stabs Rec -Rex in the back directly in the heart, and then says, "It's nothing personal, kid."

While Rex is dying, Nia is flabbergasted - she's bonded a little with Rex during the trip to this place, but Malos brushes her off, he and Jin focusing on taking the girl in the coffin.

Rex wakes up in a field of greenery, to the sound of a church bell ringing, to a girl in red standing on a hill by a tree. He runs up to her and gently calls out as the church bells fade into the ambience. The girl responds, claiming the bell hasn't stopped in all these years... Rex, confused, asks where they are. She responds that this place is Elysium - specifically saying where "we" were born. He takes it all in, understandably surprised and mystified, before he sights the green cross-shape directly over her sternum. He recognizes this to be a Core Crystal, the epicenter of a Blade, the true focus of their being - think the Gem core from Steven Universe. The girl confirms she is a Blade, and introduces herself as Pyra. (I love Pyra.) As Rex goes to introduce himself in turn, she interrupts, claiming she already knows his name from when they resonated just now. This prompts Rex to faintly recall something...

Pyra clarifies that he was killed, which brings it all rushing back. His immediate reaction, beyond danger, is to warn the rest of his guild of their danger: "No wait! I can't do anything if I'm dead! Titan's foot, if I wasn't dead, I'd kick that guy's arse!" I love Rex, I love it so much!

Once this tantrum passes, Pyra asks a personal question: if Rex can take her to the real Elysium. The place they are now is just a memory, and she needs to get to the real one. To go home, she phrases it. When Rex points out he can't do much as a dead man, she nods solemnly and touches her crystal. She can give him half of her life force, so he can continue on - as her Driver. As, specifically, the Driver of the Aegis.

Rex has no idea what to make of that, but asks to clarify if Elysium really exists - if by bringing her there, they can save the world. At Pyra's confirmation, he readily agrees to her conditions, and after touching her crystal at her behest, the contract is sealed, and he begins to wake up.

The next we see of Rex is back in the wreck, him standing up like a zombie, surrounded by a green glow originating in his chest. He flexes his hands, showing a green crystal in 1, which grows into a new copy of the red blade that had shattered when he was killed.

Outside, Malos is carrying Pyra's coffin, and they are back out on deck. He orders Nia to kill the remaining salvagers, which she refuses to do with concern obvious in her tone. As he's about to hand over Pyra to her so he can do it himself, a line of fire burns the side of the coffin, and it bursts open, a tornado reaching for the heavens and a "fesic"- pheonix rising out of the flames, Pyra herself touching down on the foremast of the ship. Rex shortly joins her, burning his way through the metal floors. As he gets his feet again, we see he has a glowing green "X" on his chest - and Pyra's crystal has a black "X" through the center.

Rex and Pyra face off against Malos and Sever, Rex quickly becoming used to fighting as a Driver, though he still has a long way to go before he is a full-fledged Driver or can fully utilize the Aegis' power. Nia helps when Rex gets disarmed, and Pyra takes her weapon in-hand to fight Malos herself, where he reveals he recognizes her personally, although not her specific red-bedecked form. As she's about to get the upper hand, the enemy's own full-metal boat rolls up and begins to shoot them. The ability of the Blades to cast ether shields can only last so long against full bombardment - Nia and Dromarch get blasted off to the side, and Rex goes to save them. Right as they are about to get attacked, though, in comes Gramps, flying like the dragon he is, shooting fireballs at the artillery and admitting he recognizes Jin and Malos, too! Gramps takes out more artillery and picks up all 4 of the kids before flying off, leaving the baddies to eat their dust in defeat. But they aren't going to rest on their laurels - rather than give chase, Jin verbalizes to letting an "Akhos" hunt them, instead focusing their attentions elsewhere.

This whole sequence is about 2 hours, and that's if you dilly-dally in the beginning - this very end sequence, from Rex getting murked to the end of Chapter 1, is approximately 20 minutes, and like, WATCH IT. It's such a good series of cutscenes!!

Chapter 2 opens on the guild Chairman screaming in anger over the job going south and demanding to know where Rex went. At this time of year, the Nopon (a bird-like type of round mascot-y humanoid from the Xenoblade series) states that their location is likely going to be Gormott, and he acts quickly to try and get the local consul on his side. The consul, the idiot, lets slip how Bana, the Chairman, sold broken unusable Core Crystals to a country named Mor Ardain, to which Bana gets upset that a country named Indol could be listening in. All useful info for later.

Rex wakes on a forested cliffside in Pyra's lap, completely alone aside from her. They race off to go find the others, and come across the crashed body of Gramps, first. He is loaded full of massive harpoons, gravely injured, and begins to glow, fading into the ether. Rex begins to cry as his mentor figure seems to fade away... only for a younger version of Gramps' voice to start screaming his name. Sike, Gramps is still alive, just very tiny now! Tiny enough to fit in Rex's salvager helmet.

Gramps in tow, they head off to find Nia and Dromarch, who are in a fight! Fight over, they gather their bearings - Nia knows where they are, the Titan Gormott, and can lead them to the capital city, Torigoth. After that, though, she says they're on their own. As they camp for the day, Pyra and Gramps discuss things over everyone's sleeping bodies - Pyra calls him "Azurda" and they discuss their familiarity vaguely, and more specifically if Pyra is legit in what she told Rex. She confirms as much, and also states her new secondary goal is to defeat Jin and Malos. Azurda asks Pyra to take care of Rex, especially if she's getting him mixed up in the whole Malos thing, which she solemnly promises.

Then they head off.

So the team gets to Cor- Torigoth, after crossing the gorgeous landscape of Gormott - Xenoblade rule, you gotta have a wide plains landscape very early on with 1 of the best songs in the OST, it's a law. Anyways, in the city, they are immediately greeted with wanted posters with Nia with Dromarch's face, alongside spitting images of Jin and Malos. They are part of a terrorist group called "Torna," but Rex and co. don't seem to care about that since Nia is now a good guy. They are also greeted with some Ardainian soldiers having a recruitment rally, and we get to see both a normal crys- Core Crystal resonance and what happens when someone fails, in the reverse order: failure involves a lot of arterial spray, and it's explained later people can and do die from this, although it's not guaranteed. Success is equally as shocking for the new Driver, as the crystal morphs in a physical weapon which, when grasped, then generates the humanoid body of the Blade, who greets their Driver and off they go to become a new duo. Azurda - Gramps - recommends Rex try this and we get the start of the most annoying mechanic in the game, the gacha Blade summoning system. It is NOT required but it DOES make the game easier, particularly if you pull "rare" Blades, like Dromarch and Pyra.

After that all, the troupe heads for less-trafficked parts of the city to find someplace to lie low, since Nia has wanted posters, only to immediately get caught by Ardainian soldiers and having to fight not only them but also Brighid, who is introduced as the Jewel of Mor Ardain, the strongest Blade in that country. She is without her Driver, and the only way the group manages to beat her is with the assistance of someone on the sidelines bursting a water pipe - the water weakens Brighid's fire powers - but not Pyra's, even though she is also a fire Blade. Interesting. Anyways, they escape, but Nia gets caught at the end, so now rescu - ugh! - Rex and Pyra and their new friend, a tiger-striped Nopon named Tora, have to go and rescue her.

Tora, as a Nopon, can't become a Driver, it's extremely rare for Nopon to become Drivers, but that's not stopping him. Before they can rescue Nia, they have to help Tora put the final touches on his artificial Blade, named Poppi. There's a funny scene when she's first awakened that reveals Tora is the anime trope of the pervy one in the group, and then they all 4 go to the Ardainian warship parked in the city to rescue Nia with Poppi's artificial brokenness - jet boosters, strong metal punches, super-strength, etc., she's busted.

Nia and Dromarch are easy to find, even though they're separated - more funny scenes there - and as the group escapes the warship, enter Brighid again... this time with her Driver, Morag Ladair. Morag is my favorite stinking character in the entire Xenoblade series so far, with the exception of Riki the Heropon from 1 because I'm a sucker for cutesy comedic relief, and the reason why comes from her kicking the main characters' booties so badly they have to destroy a full water tower, combining Rex's salvager gear, Pyra's flames, and Poppi's super-strength, in order to weaken both Morag and Brighid enough for the team to Run The Heck Away. She's such a cool character, I love her so much! Her VA has my top 2 favorite lines in the game - the 3rd belongs to an end-game scene that is spoilers, and the remaining are all taken up by Malos.

Brief aside, I strongly believe Malos' VA was 1 of very few who was given a full strip- script and very thorough directing, especially in the beginning of the story, because he KILLS it on all of his lines, every single time! He has the exact tone, volume, intensity required for every situation, and the remainder of the cast have instances of that sprinkled in up until about Chapter 6, where things finally start picking up and making sense, plot-wise.

Anyways, Chapter 3, team evacs Torigoth after destroying public property, and Nia tries to dip, but they're all friends now and friends don't ditch each other. So she stays, and Tora conveniently has an uncle - presumably the way that Eastern-style languages call most friendly older men but not elderly men "uncle" - who is a shipwright who can lend them a boat to get to the World Tree. After some running around for the guy to help him finish said boat, the gru- crew takes it and off they head, they get to the World Tree, end of game.

JK, there's this giant serpent monster blocking the way, a purple creature that Pyra recognizes and even can tell it's there before anyone even sees it! The creature, called Ophion, attacks the group despite Pyra trying to reason with it, causing her some confusion and distress. Before it can destroy the boat, however, in comes an even bigger threat: the maw of an absurdly large whale-like Titan. The Titan consumes the boat and then dives back under the Cloud Sea.

The group comes to just inside the jaws of the beast, amidst plenty of wreckage. All party members are intact, just battered around. Azurda points out this is the Urayan Titan, which is an occupied Titan - for some context, Uraya is 1 of the nations currently in tense relations with some of the others over limited resources and land. It gets referenced earlier, before the mission to get Pyra, that war may break out between Uraya and Mor Ardain again soon, and Rex so-sho- blegh! Rex should seize the chance by selling salvaged weapons, which he refuses to do so. Context given, the group starts to head deeper into the Titan, as most of civilization in Uraya is at the very back of the beast, only for them to get headed off pretty immediately by what looks to be a group of mercs. They recognize Pyra as the Aegis thanks to her green Core Crystal and set into a fight to try and take her. In his desperation to protect her, Rex drains her energy - Blades can manipulate the ether with practically no limit, but it's taxing, especially when your Driver is a rookie who saps away all of your strength with constant ether-based attacks. Just as Rex is about to bite it, since Pyra can't form a shield to protect him, the leader of the mercs halts his attack and says to his face how much of greenhorn Rex is. He explains what I just did, about the taxation of a Blade, pointing out how Pyra is gasping on the ground to Rex.

This makes absolutely no sense to the group - weren't they just trying to kill them? But the big guy, who intros himself as Vandham, explains he just wanted to have a whack at the Aegis and wants them to join him peaceably in his nearby village, where he runs a mercenary firm. The group follow him - the way to the rest of the Titan is conveniently blocked by landslide - and he explains some pretty important stuff, both directly and as a team member on a merc mission for the story: firstly, he explains to Rex that everything he does helps contribute to the war even if he isn't selling weapons since all people need all kinds of things, especially now that he has Pyra, forcing Rex to reconsider his stance on a lot of things; secondly, he helps Rex become a bever- better Driver in all kinds of ways, like upgrading 1 of his combat moves and teaching him more things about the bonds between Driver and Blade, like the ether taxation thing; and thirdly, at the end of the mission, he teaches about the life cycle of Titans. A beached Titan is dying at the end of the mission path, and as it dissolves like Azurda did, it leaves behind a Core Crystal. That's right: Blades are Titans reborn. This is subtly implied all the way from the beginning of the game, as all Titans we've gotten a clear look at their chests - that 1 mid-sized whale at the beginning, and Azurda - have Core Crystals in their sternums, like Blades do. This again forces Rex to reconsider some things - as an example, is it alright to limit their land in exchange for more Blades, more strong weapons? (Allegory for climate change, I'm just saying!)

Once they get back to camp and have had the time to digest some things, it's time for bad guys again! Nia recognizes their attacker, a poncy whimsical Shakespeare-knockoff with glasses, who she calls "Akhos" - recognize that name? His Blade, Obrona, can manipulate ether, and this translates to gameplay as certain Specials being locked off and even the Drivers or Blades being completely immobilized for some time. They fight him off, again almost at the cost of Pyra. She gets knocked totally out and they have to let her rest overnight to make sure she's ok.

When she awakens, Nia says she wants to talk to Vandham and would like Rex to accompany her. She starts to explain her past, with Torna, but Vandham cuts her off - she's not with them anymore, so it doesn't matter. Returning to the matter of getting to the World Tree, Vandham claims to know a guy who's actually gone there before and should know a way to get around Ophion, and this guy is in Fonsa Myma, the Urayan capital, so off they go!

Uraya is GORGEOUS but it's another traversal section like Gormott. However, the comedic relief of this story gets introduced in this section, at the very beginning, on some cliffs overlooking the expansive belly area of the Titan. A pair of hooded figures halts the group, demanding they hand Pyra over, and un-cloak themselves, showing a tall shirtless duster-clad man in dark colors and a purple-themed Blade with a tail ending in a lightbulb, who introduce themselves as Zeke von Genbu and Pandoria, respectively. They are not to be taken seriously, and in fact this first meeting is just a bunch of "y'all are idiots, we're not fonna fight you unless you force our hand," and lo and behold, they force their hand. Like Team Rocket, once they get beaten, the cliff crumbles out from under just them and Rex's team just ignores the whole thing ever happened.

Fonsa Myma is a place of culture - lots of stores with art and books and such. And there's a playhouse! The story demands the group goes to said playhouse and watches the show going on, the story of Addam, 2 "D's". Addam, as it turns out, was the hero who ended the Aegis War 500 years ago, by calling to the Architect for help and being granted the Aegis. The use of her power cost the world 3 great Titans but ended the strife, and stage-Addam says he then seals her power away in case it is ever needed again. Here's a fun fact: the Aegis depicted in the play has blonde hair and white clothes - not red and red, like Pyra.

Rex is concerned Pyra may be upset by the reminder of her past, but Pyra is just very excited by how technical the play was, especially the cloth mimicking flowing of waves, and is very obviously trying to invite him to nerd with her in a flirty way. He's just confused and concerned for her, though, and the flirting goes over his head. Poor lad.

The group goes to meet the writer of the play, who is the guy Vandham wanted them to meet, but the old man gets stricken with a cough before any information is dropped, so they leave his granddaughter to take care of him and head off to bed for the night at a nearby inn. In the middle of the night, the granddaughter leaves to head home, only to meet Malos and Akhos, who trick her into coming with them. Malos visits Pyra in her dreams, in that fake Elysium, and tells her to meet him "at the place of her birth" alone to rescue the girl. So she goes.

The group wake up shortly afterward and immediately clue into Pyra's disappearance but aren't extremely concerned until Vandham comes running in with old man behind him, screaming that the granddaughter is missing. So off they run to the top of the city, where a set of gates leads out to the whale Titan's tail. Halfway up the steps, Rex cringes in pain - he and Pyra share a life force, so when he gets hurt, she feels it, and vice versa. She's being attacked. The group races to go rescue her, the scene cutting to Malos fighting with Pyra, who is already exhausted fighting on her own. He taunts her, asking if she's certain she can beat him on her own, if she can handle "that power" on her own, and when Pyra defiantly refuses to ever let him have "that power," whatever it is, he claims she can never beat him. Cue Rex with his "But maybe I can!" And now its 6 against 4, tides have turned!

Rex has learned much from his brief time with Vandham - I did the calculations, they've been together for a minimum of about 2 weeks depending on how long it takes to travel the Titan - but he still has a lot to learn. Akhos uses Obrona's power to prevent all the Drivers present from using their Blades' ether, making the fight that much harder, and Rex tries desperately to compensate, all the while Malos and Akhos are verbally assaulting the group, deteriorating Nia's and Rex's morale. Pyra gets knocked about and passes out, Rex too far to protect her, but before Malos can do anything, Vandham backs the team up, outside of Obrona's field of range. He's not doing much, though, so he jumps in closer and stabs his Blade's weapons into his body, the direct connection of Blade to Driver enabling him as a human to use ether, despite Obrona's ether-controlling powers.

It's not enough, though, and Vandham succumbs to - both under his own injuries and fighting against both Torna members alone. Seeing him fall, Rex loses it, starting to fight on his own again despite literally everyone on his side asking him to run away. Just as he's about to get stabbed himself, Pyra screams out, her tiara and crystal glowing intensely green. A set of mechanical eyes begin to glow in a dark room, and Pyra lifts into the air, her body briefly vanishing around her crystal, reforming with white clothing and long blonde hair. Her sword changes, too, becoming more of a white-ish elongated double-sided weapon now. Akhos takes affront to this change in script and goes to attack her, but this new form of Pyra's tiara glows gold, and down a beam of light shoots from the heavens, flinging him aside and forcing him and Obrona to flee from her instead. This barrage also takes out half of the outdoor amphitheater this fight is taking place in.

Malos roars with glee, calling out a name: "Mythra!" He recognizes this form. Rex doesn't, and when he asks Pyra what's going on, she corrects him: "I am not Pyra. I am Mythra. Pyra - she's a different self that I constructed." Before anything else can be explained, she directs Rex to focus, letting him briefly glimpse the future so he can counter Malos and Akhos on his own. Akhos is confused by all of this, especially Mythra working despite Obrona's influence, which Malos explains is not ether! All of this will be explained way, WAY later, but first, to kick Malos and Akhos' butts.

Rex manages to harness her power at the end of another in-game fight and blast a light beam directly at the enemies, cracking their Blades' Core Crystals - no more Obrona or Sever, ever. Malos demands they flee, ignoring Akhos' grief, which leaves the group to realize what exactly has happened to Vandham and why, just as a red dawn begins to break. Mythra turns back into Pyra and passes out, leaving Rex totally alone to understand his failures and grieve the loss of his mentor.

End Chapter 3.

I have some things to say about all this, but first, let's progress the story a smidge. The next day, they have Vandham's funeral in that outdoor amphitheater, as mercs want to be buried where they fell. Pyra comes, too, and offers her condolences before the team gets the chance to ask for explanations. While she's struggling to offer anything, Mythra takes over and rips Rex a new one, claiming his uselessness is the reason she's awake again, using the power she never wanted to use again, which Rex already knows. He defends himself, though: his actions were to protect her, Pyra and Mythra both, even if he was being foolish. Embarrassed, Mythra forcibly swaps back, leaving Pyra to do some explaining.

Malos, she explains, is also an Aegis like her. They both should have access to the same power Mythra has, capable of destroying the world if they choose. Long ago, she continues, a man climbed the World Tree looking for proof of Elysium and the Architect. Instead of those divine objects, he brought back the Aegis cores and awoke Malos, who immediately set about causing destruction as if it was as natural as breathing for him, causing the Aegis War of 500 years ago. Mythra, in turn, was awoken by Addam in order to stop Malos, and succeeded - at the cost of those 3 massive Titans, like the play depicted. After the battle, in her despair, Mythra locked away her power, becoming Pyra and ordering Azurda at the time and Addam to sink her in her vessel, sinking herself into the Cloud Sea, to never be able to use her world-destroying powers again, believing she was the only remaining 1 who could do so.

It is important to note in this moment that Pyra refers to Mythra as her sister; they had 500 years to get to know each other, and while they share experiences, memories, and some aspects of their powers, they are in fact completely different personas. Pyra is gentle and can cook very well and is polite; Mythra is brash and rude and point-blank, very direct in everything she does, and is a terrible cook! What Mythra feels about something, Pyra may not share the same opinions or feelings. This is actually important to the story later - it's also important to note that Rex does not view them as separate people, rather as 2 sides of the same coin.

After all this, Rex and Pyra have an intimate moment, where she apologizes for Mythra's obscene behavior towards him, which he forgives since she was right, after all. He then goes on to say that neither girl needs to be afraid of their power anymore; he's realized that their power is different from Malos', as while his is the power to destroy, theirs' is the power to protect.

The next day after, they meet up with the old man playwright again, who hands them a Blade weapon with a strange blue-red crystal. The old man, who Pyra acknowledges as Minoth, is actually a Blade himself. Blades don't age, though - and he explains he is a Flesh Eater, a combination of Blade and human cells which grant exponential plow -powers to the Blade, but at the cost of them now becoming very mortal. No more returning to their crystal to be reborn to a new Driver later. The process used to be very common before the Aegis War, particularly in a country called Judicium, but it is now strictly prohibited.

Anyways, the Driver of Minoth is in a country called Indol and will tell the group how to get to Elysium. So, the best way to get to Indol is to first go back to Rex's guild and from there to Mor Ardain, which is one of the closest countries to Indol at this time of year. The fastest way to do that is to leave Fonsa Myma, but first, Vandham's cohort request Rex to come back to the merc village. Turns out Re- Vandham wants Rex to have both his 1 Blade's Core Crystal, Roc, and also to lead the mercs going forward. THIS I have complaints about, particularly since the next bit of story is a detour back to Gormott because Roc's crystal gets snatched in a pointless sidequest to force Rex to awaken Roc.

So. I have 3 overarching complaints about this section, the first being that Roc's awakening sidequest is completely and utterly pointless. This is JUST filler to force Rex to awaken Roc, to do something only Roc can do to help the kids that stole his crystal. This is forcing action that isn't necessary - it's a detour for extending the plot alone. Roc, as an extension of Vandham for the rest of the game, deserves WAY better for his forced awakening than an unnecessary side mission. Secondly, Vandham's death and the ens-ensuing bequeathing of both Roc and the mercs does not at all feel deserved in 2 ways. The first is that we did not know Vandham long enough to have any kind of emotional bond, either as players or for the characters. Rex crying over Vandham's death and falling to his knees, a broken mess, does not at all feel deserved.

As a comparison, take a look at the beginning of Xenoblade Chronicles 1, just the first hour! Shulk has multiple friends whose relationships are built up quite extensively, to the friends and to other side characters, before 1 of those friends passes away from an assault on their hometown despite Shulk gaining newfound extreme powers to mow down their attackers. He gets there too late to save the friend, and this helplessness in both cutscene and gameplay combined with getting to know this friend character only to have them die within the first hour of gameplay - it sucks! It hurts! It sucks! It's emotionally impactful! Now everyone involved, characters and players, have a strong feeling to continue the game, for revenge!

Vandham is this random dude who spends most of his teaching moments in cutscenes, is an optional party member you in no way ever have to swap into, and there aren't very many emotional bond moments. He's very professional, actually, and where emotional moments could be had are usually replaced with teaching or professionalism. When they meet, for example, Vandham points out how green Rex is. He blows off Nia's attempt at confessing her past, very matter-of-factly stating it doesn't matter since she's chosen to be with the good guys now. Vandham is a walking reminder of how Rex still has a lot to learn, and his death being reduced to the same is really annoying to me, especially since it was trying to do the same thing as Xenoblade 1 with the same emotional impact.

And finally, this lack of emotional connection makes the bequeathing make absolutely NO sense. We find out from extremely rare post-battle conversations with Vandham in the party, which happen randomly and cannot be controlled, and 1 NPC in the entire game who you need a specific rare random Blade to even talk to, that Vandham had a son and views Rex as similar. That's the only possible explanation, is that Vandham viewed Rex as so much of a son in such a short period of time that it made sense to him to leave these important things to Rex.

This also feels very unearned to me. The least they could have done was have some kind of cutscene where Vandham verbalizes something of this intent. Something like this, maybe: On the way to Fonsa Myma, the group is forced to rescue someone from monsters, and Rex immediately takes charge even though it looks exceedingly dangerous for their skill level, showing his leadership and his recklessness. Afterwards, they camp, and Vandham mentions once everyone es- else is asleep how green Rex still is but he sees how much he's grown already, how much he's taking into account Vandham's advice and learning quickly to be a good Driver. Embarrassed, Rex thanks the "old man" for the praise, and that specific phrasing causes Vandham to get serious, prompting him to tell Rex that if anything were to happen to Vandham, he would want Roc and the mercs to go to Rex - he's shown he's responsible enough for it already, and he would want these important things of his to go to someone he can trust.

That would set up not only an emotional bond but a legitimate reason for the mercs and Roc to go to Rex, as well as hinting that Vandham might have more reason than just respect of a fellow fighter to leave such important stuff to the kid. The "old man" phrasing combined with the somber mood would definitely clue in that maybe Vandham had a son, that r-Rex reminds him of, beyond extremely well-hidden dialogue that, without, makes the whole circumstance just odd. This additionally would give the benefit of Rex trying to take extra care of Roc and having a much more emotional connection to the bird Blade, and potentially open the opportunity for less inane reasons to awaken him - like, oh, I don't know, they're in a pinch and need the strength Roc has, the strength Vandham had, as a way of Rex accepting and showing he's ready to be the l-leader Vandham was, to show his growth as a character.

I have feelings. I'm big mad. Moving on.

The crew get Roc back, awaken him, and head back to the guild to then go to Mor Ardain. The country is the most humanoid-looking Titan we get to see in the game, and the capital of this country is located on a small part of the Titan's left shoulder. Most of the Titan is vertical space and also non-arable desert, explaining why Mor Ardain is potentially going to war with Uraya again and why they've colonized Gormott, the most verdant of the countries we get to see. They head up to the capital to get some rest, as the next boat to Indol isn't coming in for a while, only for a different artificial Blade to attack the town. Morag comes in and blames Poppi as the team is tracking after the Blade, and Morag's interference lets her get away. After the fight, Morag hears out the team and gives them leave to investigate this other Blade, which they succeed at by tracking down the rarer materials used to make Poppi. The investigation takes them to an abandoned factory in the Titan's chest - oh, but first, another fight with Zeke, this 1 equally as ridiculous as the first, and this time they get catapulted like Team Rocket by an Indiana Jones boulder smacking them into space.

Right, abandoned factory. Not so abandoned, actually, as it's currently being used to mass-produce skeletal artificial Blades and is being run by both Tora's dad, who he had assumed was dead, and Bana, Rex's guild Chairman who sent him off on the mission to get Pyra, where he died. To fight Bana, they first have to get through the other Blade, Lila, Poppi's older sister sort of, and Poppi has to take Lila's ether furnace, the thing that gives them Blade powers, to become a new version and take down Bana. Bana runs off before the team can catch him, outside to a hidden port, where 2 new members of Torna that Nia identify as Patroka and Mikhail halt them. Turns out Bana was selling the Blades to Torna - for what, we still don't know. Morag finally catches up, with the rest of the Ardainian army she could request to shut down the factory, and between Poppi's new powers and Morag's sheer awesomeness, they clean up Mik and Pat pretty easily. Patroka gets VERY pissed at this and begins to use a maliciously red aura, that Mik exclaims she can't use here, only for all Blades present to get forced to the ground by a new Blade, a staff-wielding Shinto-princess-dressed Blade who forces Torna to retreat.

Chapter 5 opens on this Blade in the middle of combat, against Mythra and a hooded figure who gets named Addam - her Driver is a samurai-looking woman who gets called Lora. The sparring match goes smoothly, Lora and the Blade, who is named Haze in this flashback, are complimented on how similar they look and how Haze's power makes sparring very easily, and then in walks Jin. Who knows all present, and claims not to like fighting at all when asked to spar.

Back in the future, Jin is taking over an Ardainian weapons dig in a region that is very black and rocky, killing whoever he needs to do so. Back with Rex and co., Haze introduces herself as Fan la Norne, which confuses Mythra, and claims she is an envoy from Indol to help bring the Aegis in to meet the Praetor, basically the Pope. To get there, they need to take a detour through Rex's homeland, the Leftherian Archipelago, whose 1 major settlement, Fonsett Village, is where Rex calls home. They camp the night there, Pyra meeting Rex's parents - or rather, their graves - and his Aunt Corrine, who explains later that night that Rex's parents died in some war several years ago, his mom only making it long enough to ask her to care for him. Pyra confides that she would rather leave Rex so he doesn't get hurt from being involved with her - these 2 are the most depressed women in this game, Pyra and Mythra. The next morning, once they make it to the other port to head off to Indol, Zeke shows up once again, this time since Morag is in tow she can tell us she recognizes him - as a prince and the strongest Driver of another country called Tantal. In 1 move, he topples over the entire party who - save Morag and Brighid, who refuse to fight him, showing there may be some merit to this, and after the fight, he explains he, too, is an envoy of Indol, sent to test the prowess of the Aegis' Driver and bring them back to Indol. However, he also has extremely bad luck, hence why Fan was finally sent to bring them in. Zeke joins the party on the trip to Indol, and leads them to the Praetor alongside Fan once they get to the Vatican-like country.

An important small note: Indol controls almost all flow of Blades into all countries' militaries, so a lot of people blame Indol for all war, including the refugees that currently live in the city.

The Praetor greets them warmly, introducing himself as Amalthus and, when Rex presents Minoth's Blade weapon, confirms that he is both Minoth's Driver and the man who climbed the World Tree and gathered the Aegis crystals. For those astute enough to remember that part of the story, this means he is also Malos' Driver, although he doesn't confirm it in this cutscene. Instead, he explains that he ordered Tantal to control Ophion and prevent anyone from getting to the World Tree since his awakening of Malos, afraid that anyone else who went up there would return with something worse. So the group needs to go to Tantal, but first the party gets interrupted by news that Mor Ardain is attacking an Urayan encampment in the disputed land of Temperantia, so off they go to try and stop that, especially since Morag gets confirmation from the Ardainian emissary conveniently present in Indol that Mor Ardain would never order such a thing without the emperor's direct command.

Once the team gets to Temperantia, they quickly find that Jin is in control of a Titan weapon and fight to stop him. During the fight, Jin reveals himself to be a Blade with a blood-red crystal in his forehead. They manage to win over him, but the victory is pyrrhic in 2 ways: firstly, before Jin runs off, he runs his weapon through Fan's Core Crystal, killing her and leaving her body to lie there (which is odd - Obrona and Sever returned to their crystals when they died forevermore), and secondly, despite halting the weapon, Urayan and Mor Ardainian warships still come in over Temperantia, war about to break out, only for Indol itself to come swooping in directly in the middle of the conflict before it can begin.

Chapter 6 opens with another Jin flashback, explaining that his crystal was stolen before the Aegis War from a country named Torna and was accidentally awoken by a young Lora, who was dealing with an abusive father figure that Jin protected her from at the time. Back in the present, Amalthus invites Queen Raqura of Uraya and Emperor Niall of Mor Ardain into his country to discuss a ceasefire, alongside Zeke and Mythra as the Aegis. This meeting is essentially to have 2 unbiased parties - Zeke and Mythra - explain that Torna the terrorist group are actually responsible for the attack, and any further aggression on either country would be their own conscious choice, falling into Torna's trap. The 2 leaders agree to not continue aggressions in front of Amalthus, and then agree to later have a political banquet to further discuss the ten- terms of their new tense truce.

The team has nothing to do with that, they need to get to Tantal. They stick around for Fan's funeral, where Mythra explains that her Core Crystal was weird - half was gone, like her situation with Rex, but the bottom half, not the middle, as if it was stolen instead of given. This would also explan why Fan didn't remember her real name, Haze, and why she died with a body instead of returning to her crystal, because her crystal wasn't complete! After the funeral, Morag has to stay behind to protect Niall during the banquet, with Zeke taking her spot to lead on to Tantal. But on the way out of Indol, they get word that an assassination attempt could occur during the banquet! After some investigating and false accusations, they find Bana is back with a new giant artificial Blade on the Ardainian warship the banquet is happening on and have to fight to protect the royalty. At the very end of the fight, Bana chooses to self-destruct the Blade rather than be captured, and Niall uses his Blade's defensive powers to protect everyone pl-present while he himself tries to smack the button out of Bana's hand, only to be just a moment too late.

I'm mentioning this despite how this banquet seems useless to the important plot because, mainly, my favorite lines are from Morag in this sequence. Niall is her little brother, and his death causes her to grieve in just the rawest most superb way I've ever heard in a video game. The second line is when Dromarch, to help Niall be - Nia, not Niall, to help Nia be alone, distracts the whole crew and gets them all to run after fake enemies - her sharp "Where?!?" is just so deadly and angry, and ugh, I love her so much. Ugh, Morag is so good, I love her! Ugh. Anyways. Uh, Nia needs to be alone because, as we see, someone else comes in to help heal Niall, using intensely awesome healing powers to seemingly bring him back from the dead. This person has a blue-and-pink Core Crystal in her sternum - a Flesh Eater, with extreme healing powers. Hmm, who could that be???

No, but legitimately, I didn't figure out the - who this was until way later, when the game explicitly told me. So if you did figure it out on your own, kudos to you, you're smarter than me!

Anyways, Niall is safe and Morag is sobbing for a new reason once she returns, and Niall hands over both his Blade's crystal and permission for Morag to accompany Rex's crew until Pyra's wish to get to Elysium is fulfilled. So now, finally, off to Tantal! This is all still chapter 6.

On the way out of Indol, Pandoria finally pipes up of her own accord, explaining that Zeke is an adventurous and headstrong personality, completely at odds with the isolationist country he comes from, and that's why he's been exiled from said country. This is easy to accomplish, the isolationism, for the turtle Titan Genbu, as it spends most of its time under the Cloud Sea, similar to Uraya, and Pandoria is the only 1 who can directly communicate with the Titan to force it to surface. With her on the outside it's - regardless, actually, with her wherever in the world, it's very easy for Genbu to just... chill under the Cloud Sea and just completely allow Tantal to not be involved with anything else.

Genbu, home of Tantal, is the cold Titan and has weak ether flow - its got bad blood pressure! Which is odd, Titans usually don't have any issues with their ether flows until they start dying, and Genbu is far from that day. Anyways, they get to Tantal's capital and head straight for the palace to za- talk with Zeke's dad. The king immediately destroys the official letter of request from Indol and seizes the group, separating Pyra from the rest and throwing them all in jail. The same jail cell, which is dumb, especially since Poppi hasn't used any abilities since stepping into the palace, and she can focus all her power on 1 blast to push them out of their ether-sapping cell. Zeke meets up with them - his dad took him aside to talk to him on a specific heritage thing - and Zeke confirms that his dad's plan is to kill Pyra with a super-powered ether beam. Down to the basement they run to stop this, and they get there just in tie to knock the machine off-balance, the beam being flung out into the Titan, through its head, out into the atmosphere, and off the planet. Hmmm!!

Defeated, the king explains himself: his country are not descended from Addam, like they claim they are, and Indol found this out and began to blackmail them for Core Chips, a Blade accessory to increase a Blade's power, which are refined from ether. This is why Genbu's ether flow sucks - they are actively stealing the blood of the Titan to fuel their blackmail contract. He reacted the way he did believing the group was come from Indol to act on their newest threat: to hand over the Omega Fetter, the item that controls both Ophion and Genbu, or else have their secret released adn their reputation as a country destroyed.

Pyra, as if to prove their cause and the king's confirmation of not being related to Addam both, pulls off an earring to show a dang hologram - when was this a thing??? The hologram is of Addam himself confirming a bunch of other things, amidst all the stuff we were just talking about, such - in, and additional things, such as Pyra being sealed instead of destroyed because he knew Malos wasn't dead, Pyra and Mythra's powers being meant to protect humanity instead of destroy, blah blah blah. This doubly shames the king - he was about to destroy their 1 shot at saving humanity from Malos! And then triply ashamed, because as a servant comes racing in to tell, Genbu is no longer in control and rapidly is diving in the Cloud Sea - the ether beam damaged its brain, such that the Omega Fetter AND Pandoria can no longer communicate. Pyra theorizes she can fix it if they can get in contact with the item, so off they race.

The servant claims Genbu would destroy itself from diving pressure within 3 hours - there is no possible way to get from the palace to the head of Genbu within 3 in-game hours, nor even 3 in-game days. 3 real hours, yes, if you are go-go-go-in and ignore the dozen side quests that pop up during this time when NPCs should be evacuating!

They get there in time, apparently, and Mythra steps forward to fix the b- floating bit of antimatter, the results being immediately felt when Genbu stops diving. The group grabs the Fetter, to use it to control Ophion and let them access the World Tree, but af -as they leave, here's Torna again! Akhos, Mikhail, and Patroka are all here to stop them, and they reveal themselves to be Flesh Eaters, too, with the berry-colored cores. This explains the difficulty in fighting them and Patroka's red aura from Mor Ardain. Rex and co. defeat them, but in sweep Malos and Jin to protect their compatriots. Jin reveals his true Flesh Eater form, in which he can control all ether and move at the speed of light, which takes the difficulty from a 10 to a 100. He single-handedly beats the party, moves too fast for Mythra's foresight to lets Rex see the future to block him, and even deflects her light beam. Side note, the light beam belongs to another massive monster like Ophion, which belongs to Mythra alone, like Ophion belongs to Pyra - this machine is called Siren. They are Artifices, and were an instrumental part in the Aegis War. Malos used to have his, too, but has since lost the power to interact with them.

Jin easily beats everyone and all of Rex and Mythra's attempts to thwart him, and just as Jin is about to kill Rex again and take Pyra's Core Crystal, Pyra shouts for him to stop. Mythra has been weakened and cannot be here to control Siren - but Pyra is part of her. Jin may be able to deflect the lazer beam but he can move as fast as light - and the targeting beam Siren uses to shoot its shot is strong enough if focused to completely vaporize even an Aegis. And Pyra has access to using the targeting beam. She threatens to completely destroy herself if Torna does not leave her friends alone. In exchange for Rex's life, she leaves with Torna and the Omega Fetter.

Chapter 7 opens with Rex being sad he lost and couldn't protect Pyra and Mythra, but he gets over that real quick, especially with his friends comforting him. They're still in Tantal and the king summons them as Rex comes back to his normal self, explaining that Tantal has a legend of a 3rd Aegis sword that Addam buried with himself when he died. According to the Tantalese legend, this resting place is somewhere in Leftheria - this explains why Torna needed Rex in the beginning to unlock the doors to the - to Pyra, in the boat, as only someone of Addam's blood could unlock the seals. The party's quest is now to find that 3rd sword in Leftheria, unlocking the Aegis' true power, so they can beat Torna.

Cut to Torna in their ship, heading as close as they can to the World Tree, run- wondering amongst themselves why Pyra would have killed herself knowing how she shares her life force with Rex. That would have killed him, too, right? Malos then explains that she would have given Rex the remainder of her crystal, as unlike normal Blades, Aegises can survive without their crystals for a bit of time.

Once the crew is in Leftheria, Azurda pipes up and leads them to the Village Guardian, a massive gravestone in the shape of the cross-like form the Aegis crystals share. He was tasked with Addam specifically to hide and protect the 3rd sword. A seal is found on the stone which, when ra- Rex touches, leads them down into a tomb. This area, called the Spirit Crucible Elpys, is Addam's final resting place, the innards of a dead decaying Titan. The Titan's decay forms as a specific particle that saps the ether from Blades, causing them some physical distress and making gameplay unable to use specific abilities, except for Poppi, since she generates her own ether. The further in they go, the harder the Blades are taking it, as is Zeke. Zeke explains that he is actually also part Blade, although in the reverse of how Torna are: after being exiled, Amalthus rescued him from the brink of death by taking half of Pandoria's core and implanting it in his chest. Nia is also being affected, but she explains that its because she's out of shape and all the hiking is taking it out of her. On a rest stop near the end, Rex has to give her an emergency air supply, as she is struggling to breathe, unlike anyone else. To distract herself, she tells her own story: her sister was extremely sick, so her dad wasted a fortune buying doctors and healing Blades to try and save her, only to ultimately fail. The despair took her father, too, leaving Nia alone with a bunch of healing Blades, of which she took Dromarch and fled, afraid her people would blame for her family's deaths. This ostracization is what led her to Torna, as Jin accepted her for who she was, regardless of where she came from or why.

At the very end of the Crucible, they find Addam's actual tomb, in whch they gets their butts hammer-smacked by phantasms of Addam's ghost. Rex, working on his own powers, almost gets murdered, but the fear of that forces Nia to finally reveal her true form: an extremely powerful Flesh Eater healer who has complete control over water - this is the pers- same person we saw bringing Niall back from dying. She heals the group and enables them to use their ether powers despite the Crucible's effect, and with that they turn the tide to beat Addam's ghosts.

Them defeated, a new sword is lifted from a pedestal, a greenish looking monster of complexity. When Rex touches it, he's taken into a mental space where he talks directly with Addam, where he commends Rex for his bravery and willingness to stick it out for the girl, and allows Rex to have access to the 3rd sword, only to warn him he won't be able to use l- it until he can fully accept their powers.

Back in reality, right after Rex grasps the sword, it crumbles away into dust, leaving everyone aside from Rex extremely angry. Rex is calm, though, and got a vision right at the end of his talk with Addam, knowing what he needs to do for Pyra and where he needs to go to rescue Mythra. When he explains the location, a rotting Titan near the barrier void preventing people from getting to the World Tree, Morag recognizes the description and helps them charter a military vessel to get to the Cliffs of Morytha.

This is a short region, nothing much interesting to say other than a few Torna cutscenes where they take over Ophion and torture Pyra so Malos can heal his damage that she caused 500 years ago, and at the end there are a few hard fights. Malos, fully regenerated, has access to his own weapon and Aegis powers again and is a hard fight. Luckily, Nia is broken and heals all damage he does, even the antimatter implosions he causes. She is actually what defeats him in this first fight, giving him super cancer in all of his cells and flinging him off the edge into the abyss below. The second fight, at the very end of the Cliffs, is against Jin and Malos - Malos is much harder to-to kill than that, Nia. This is arguably the hardest fight in the game, even being very difficult on easy mode at the level cap! Pyra is completely unconscious, unable to be roused, but all amidst the fight, Rex calls out to her anyway, trying to get some reaction, trying to let her know it's okay for her to be scared, since he'll be there to comfort her every time.

Jin locks down the battlefield to nearly absolute zero, preventing Nia's healing powers, or Malos from helping him. Mano y mano, Rex still calls out to the girls while he holds off Jin, and they use the last of their powers to speak directly into his mind, both of them at once telling them he doesn't need to risk himself like this, that they lied to him, that they intend to ask the Architect to kill them once they get to Elysium, and that Rex needs to return to his normal life so he doesn't get hurt anymore. But Rex simply counters with the fact that he made them a promise, and he's going to keep that promise no matter what, even if that means taking on the entire world and preventing it from burning a second time all on his own.

This combined with his earlier confession suddenly transports him into a massive dimly-lit room, with both of the girls' personas before him. A massive machine takes up most of the room's space, and the girls explain this is the ultimate power they were granted at birth, challenging him 1 final time to confirm he's willing to take it on. As his response, he offers his hands to them both, which they happily take.

In reality, the 3rd sword materializes in front of Rex, and Pyra's unconscious body begins to glow green, her form once again evaporating and benig replaced with a green-themed body wrapped in a zero suit and surrounded by green wings made of thousands sword blades. This form is technically both girls at once, so the game gives you the option at this point of how to refer to them: Pyra or Mythra. The game refers to this form as whatever option is chosen going forward, in tutorials, cutscenes, etc.

I HATE this choice. It flies in the face of Rex's beliefs about the girl being the same no matter what, and also, at this point in the story, Pyra has had more than triple the screen time, and what little screen time Mythra has had has not been very emotional or very showing of her personality, mostly just using Mythra as eye candy in the background. The few times Mythra's personality has actually come out have been her awakening, Vandham's funeral, during both of which she yells at Rex for being useless, and a scene I skipped during Roc's side arc where she sneaks into the boys room at an inn, wakes up wrapped around Rex, and then blames HIM for this and starts throwing things at him while screaming profanity. Once the guys finally explain it to her, she leaves in a fluster, still yelling at Rex.

So, she's pretty much a tsundere without the dere - that's all Pyra. Why would anyone choose Mythra??? All of Mythra's sympathy points come AFTER this moment. There was even a poll to see how people chose in this moment, and the results are stacked very much in Pyra's favor. And it's not like there are any story consequences, either, this is just flavor text - which character do you prefer at this moment in time?

Anyways, green Pyra is stupid busted and very quickly wipes the deck with both Jin and Malos, and in true JRPG fashion, we let Malos explain himself before we go to defeat him. He believes he is the Aegis meant to destroy the world, and his awakening was fate, and there is nothing that can prevent that fate from occurring, even if they defeat him. Just like how Pyra wanted to go to Elysium to kill herself, he needs to get to Elysium to destroy everything, to use the massive machine we just saw when Rex accepted the girls, the ultimate Artifice, Aion, to wipe out the planet. We can't let that happen, and as Rex and green Pyra leap forward, he summons Ophion to deal with them. Green Pyra, in response, summons Siren to handle Ophion, but the clash of the Artifices produces a shockwave that destroys the cliff and sends all parties down into the abyss below.

In between the end of chapter 7 and the beginning of chapter 8, the content that eventually became the story DLC Torna: The Golden Country was supposed to go here. We were supposed to be able to play as Jin and Lora and Addam and Mythra as they all were 500 years ago and their own fight against Malos, which we now know was futile, but about 1/3 of the way through writing TGC, the writers went "Hmm, this is already more than we were anticipating for this section... Let's just make this a DLC."

The next chapter starts in a reverse of chapter 2: now Mythra is waking up in Rex's lap, and instead of in a forest of green plantlife, they're on the ground amongst towering ruined skyscrapers. In the distance they can spot the base of the World Tree, and above them are swirling dark clouds that presumably is the bottom of the Cloud Sea, because Mythra confirms they must be in the legendary Land of Morytha, the birthplace of the Architect. They are alone, and after they get their bearings, they head off to find their friends, talking about their experiences apart from each other and the girls' 3rd form, which she confirms once again is both of them at once. This is where the legendary "coffee with milk" reference comes from - Mythra being the bitter coffee and Pyra being the taming sweetening milk. I'm going to still call that form green Pyra until otherwise given a choice, because she's green and I prefer calling her Pyra... since we have a choice in the matter.

A little ways into their search for the group, they run into Jin, fighting a warped humanoid on his own and struggling. Rex immediately jumps in to help despite Mythra's protests, and Jin graciously accepts the help but gets outclassed and lets Rex and, when they show up, Brighid, Poppi, and Azurda finish off the monster before passing out from his injuries. Rex persuades Mythra to heal him, which as an Aegis she can do. She can't undo the damage of the existence of the human cells in his Core Crystal but she can heal his ether flows and information processing so he can wake up again. When he does wake up, he calls Mythra as such, as he never returned to his crystal from 500 years ago. Rex and Mythra both ask Jin why he's now fighting with the enemy when Jin fought with Mythra against Malos all that time ago, to which Jin has no answer. Mythra further interrogates him, deducing that Lora's cells are what are keeping him alive as a Flesh Eater, which he does not confirm aloud but the chagrin and despair is palpable in this man. D-Jin doesn't seem willing to attack the group, and so Rex lets him tag along, provided he not got in their way or stop them from proceeding to Elysium.

I am just noticing that I am about an hour into this episode and I still have about a third of my script left, so if y'all need to pause, uh, feel free, and if this way too long of an episode for you going forward, I totally understand, I'm going from now on to keep everything - less! Less, just a lot of less.

Um, so.

They continue for a bit, Jin and Brighid rehashing their history, and then make camp for the night. Poppi doesn't need to sleep, technically, and Mythra can't very s- sleep very well, so they spend a bit talking about the place they're in. How the Land of Morytha was destroyed by humanity's own hubris, despite and because of simultaneously how technologically advanced they were. This gives Poppi some existential dread, because she, too, is a piece of technological advancement, just like Mythra, and asks Mythra to promise her if ever Poppi were to be used or convinced to attack the world, Mythra would destroy her to stop it. The Aegis grants this promise in exchange for an as-yet-unnamed promise of her own.

The next day, or at least when everyone wakes up again since Morytha does not have a day/night cycle, the party continues, Jin still being a jerk whenever the group gets mystified by the things they're seeing in this advanced hellscape, claiming humanity is doomed to be their own destruction repeatedly from greed and hubris. When Rex demands to know what his problem is, Jin's retort is cut off from him spotting a massive Titan's corpse in the distance, and off he races.

Quick cut to the rest of the terrorist group Torna in their ship struggling with the density of the Cloud Sea, but just as it seems like all host is lo- all - bleh - all hope is lost, out they pop under the clouds into the Land of Morytha, too.

The Titan in Morytha is very worn down but not yet skeletal, and Jin rushes through an entrance in its hide to a place he announces is the womb. Broken eggs are scattered around, but instead of baby Titans like this draconic one, there are humanoid figures lying decaying out of the eggshells. Humanoids with what you hopefully recognize by this point in the game are the same features as the quote-unquote "common" Blades, the ones with utterly generic features and are not super special like Brighid, Pandoria, etc. These humanoids also have features of the Titan they are inside of, too, and Jin confirms this by making clear the full life cycle of both Blades and Titans: Blades are not immortal as in they last forever and ever and ever. Eventually, they become tired and return to their Titan of birth to gestate and become Titans themselves. And then, throughout those Titans' lifespans and at the end, as well, they spawn new Core Crystals and new Blades. This cycle was revered in old Torna, the land Jin comes from, the Titan they are inside of for this exposition, but was interrupted when Mythra sealed herself away, as no 1 was there to enforce it and prevent anyone from interfering.

Remember how I said earlier how 1 specific country controls most flow of Core Crystals around the world of Alrest? Hm, I wonder if that has anything to do with the dwindling landmass issue the world is facing right now. Hm, I wonder if that's possibly even intentional, HMM! Anyways.

Torna was still afloat and Jin was still just a normal Blade when Mythra sealed herself. Jin explains that Indol attacked once both Aegises had been dealt with, sinking Torna after the other 2 continents had fallen from the Aegis War, and in trying to escape with Lora, she was greatly injured by the attack commanded by Amalthus. Jin tried his best to get her to safety, but her injury was mortal, and before she passed on, she futilely requested he not forget her, knowing full well that Blades who return to their crystals get their memories wiped. In response, Jin, who we know from flashbacks of his time with Lora knew the secret to becoming a Flesh Eater, promised never to forget her and its very strongly implied he literally ripped her still-beating heart out and ate it, and that's 1) how he became a Flesh Eater, quite literally, and 2) why his crystal is completely red instead of mottled like the other Flesh Eaters we've seen. It also potentially explains his awesome power, as a running theory in the community is that Flesh Eaters' powers were impacted by how close they are to the person whose cells they bond with.

Torna: The Countr- Golden Country goes more into this, but even from the main story, we see that Jin was in love with Lora. To kill her himself to preserve the memories they shared... No wonder that drove him to seek humanity's extinction alongside Malos.

Mythra and Pyra are both utterly blown over at this news, of mal-Amalthus' attack, wondering if it was better if they had stayed. Jin counters, claiming the megalomaniac would have done so regardless, as he wants to destroy EVERYTHING and will do whatever he can to do so, up to and including using the Architect's powers, Aegises, etc. to do so. Also no wonder why Malos is so hell-bent on destroying the world, too!

After all this exposition, a massive warped humanoid in comes to fight the group, after which Rex finds a human's ID card on the body. Implications, implications... Before he can fully understand or explain, the rest of the group joins up and also so do the rest of Torna, grabbing Jin and beginning their ascent up the World Tree. Rex and co. aren't far from the base of the Tree itself, so they race off on foot after him.

Elsewhere, Niall is receiving news that Mor Ardain's dying Titan is in fact dying much faster than projected, and that he needs to start considering relocating the capital.

Back with Rex, the team gets to the base of the World Tree and discover that, at the heart of the all the plant life, is actually a gargantuan and very narrow technological building. An elevator awaits them, that green Pyra instinctually can command, and up they go into the heart of the World Tree's technological center.

Outside the World Tree, Torna has ascended through the Cloud Sea again, only to find Indol is Right There up against the Tree and them. Indol begins to attack. Torna can hold them off but only for so long, so in a moment to breathe, they dock just long enough to let out Jin and Malos, who continue their trek up the Tree.

Our main characters navigate the innards and finally join Torna on the outside, where they are perplexed to see Indol attacking even this terrorist group. Amalthus shows himself via hologram to the entire world, commanding Rex, as the Master Driver with the full power of the Aegis under his control, to destroy Torna. When the team refuses, we find out where Fan la Norne's other crystal half went: Amalthus' forehead. He uses the power to control Blades to force Mythra to attack, which she just manages to redirect, scraping Torna's ship instead of obliterating it. When he goes to try again, Azurda reminds Rex that he is now the Master Driver and technically he can cho- control all Blades with an iron grasp if he so chose. Rex uses this to grant the group free will from Amalthus, and Mythra can no longer be used against anyone, let alone Torna. Enraged, Amalthus uses the other side of Fan's power to level his side of the playing field: he summons all the remaining Titans of the world to encircle the World Tree, and with this control, commands Mor Ardain's Titan to attack the Tree using a powerful ether beam.

Chapter 9, penultimate. Torna offloads everyone but Mikhail, the tech wizard, at his insistence, and he transforms the ship into a Titan-like shape (almost like the Faces from Xenoblade Chronicles 1) and begins to directly fight with Indol while manuevering around continued blasts from Mor Ardain. On Mor Ardain, Niall is ordering the emergency evacuation of the entire Titan; if any more concentrated firepower occurs, the Titan will lose the power to stand on its own and collapse under its own weight. Indol is also in the process of being evacuated by the other nations nearby, as Amalthus started all this without giving his people that bare courtesy, the dastardly villian that he is! Rex takes all this in with a floundering sense of panic, until he spots glowing towers on Indol's Titan and figures out that Amalthus is broadcasting his powers, hence how he could summon even Genbu from the depths of the Cloud Sea. The group follows his lead to a nearby branch/sky port, where he, Mythra, and Poppi, using Poppi's jet boosters, go flying as close to Indol as they possibly can before green Pyra and he focus together to use Siren's laser beams and blast away those accursed pillars!

The power immediately blasted away, the Titans start drifting away, some going under the clouds, others turning to leave. Indol stays put, though, and begins to blast the Tree with its own ether beams. The attack is directed at Rex's group, but Torna's big bad ship takes the hit to protect them. Mikhail has no idea why he's done this, in fact he expresses he still very much hates humanity, but admits that maybe, looking at Rex's group reminds him of the people he once loved, and he wants to act to make them proud of who he is. He then turns and zooms into Indol's bird-like Titan, grabbing it by the neck, and flinging it onto its spine against the World Tree. As Mikhail is raring for the final strike, Indol turns and powers up 1 final ether beam, which when it connects at this close range, causes the ship to completely explode, which rips apart Indol, as well. The country begins to sink, and Rex and co. have no choice but to press on in their quest up the World Tree to stop Jin and Malos, to prevent any further destruction.

There's about a thousand elevators in the World Tree, but there's only 1 at the very top that leads beyond the World Tree, above. This is where Jin parts from Malos, allowing him to go on ahead, so Jin can stave off Rex's crew and have 1 final man-to-man with him. Malos tries to guilt him into coming along, claiming they promised to do these final deeds together, which Jin acknowledges, in the same breath claiming he was told to wait. We see that he sees Lora, distraught, at the far end of this final room. He turns from her to Malos and tells him that he'll be watching - everyone - from now on. Malos shakes his head but comes over to hug Jin goodbye anyways before he ascends to that place beyond.

Rex and friends catch up to Jin shortly, and once again there is a rather hard fight, which the group resists at first because they all know if they continue fight Jin now, he's going to die from exertion. After the gameplay part, Jin and Rex continue fighting on their own, arguing ideals. Rex finally explains the conclusion he's come to about the bonds between Blades and humans: humans can be cruel and greedy, yes, but Blades and Titans, virtually immortal beings, are there to help them prevent such atrocities as Morytha from happening again. Rex will fight to protect the world alongside his Blade friends, and when he dies, someone else will continue to do the same, and so on. Humans' lives get passed down to those around them when they die, to continue on in memory, and it's the same with Blades, exactly. Rex even admits that he's envious of the life cycle of Blades and Titans, and his goal for meeting the Architect isn't to steal his almighty powers or destroy the world - it's to ask why the Architect created that cycle, which Rex believes he already knows the answer to, so the journey is more just to double-check his answer. Ah, the unshakeable optimism of youth.

Jin she- seems shaken by this onslaught of positivity and actually collapses, which causes the remaining Torna members, Akhos and Patroka who are finally arriving, to viciously come to his side, barking at the MCs not to kill him. Nia gets called in to help patch up Jin with her Flesh Eater powers, and in the middle of jogging over, a Core-Crystal-blue tentacle spears through the floor and through Patroka. A dozen more rip open a hole and carry up the grotesquely altered archangelic form of Amalthus, reborn. He commands the group to climb no further, in the same breath reaching out with his now-vice-like grip to pluck the Core Crystal from Patroka's chest, swallowing it into his skin, which is dotted all over with dozens and dozens of Core Crystals.

"If the Architect did send Blades to this world, it was for my sake," the maniac claims. He has become what he views as a being to rival an Aegis, with the same power to destroy worthless things, which he claims is the Architect's true will in sending Blades to the world. His words visibly shake green Pyra, but Rex defends her, once again stating hers is the power to protect. Amalthus, too, believes that humanity are full of greed and violence, and that this will never change. He goes on to claim that any kind of change equals the loss of self, and that anyone who willingly changes or accepts their fate to change is crazy to do so! Like, clearly a tyrannical, abusive, ridiculous, massively over-inflated egotistical despot. Like - whu-?!? Amalthus is a great villain - but also just, out there, just wild, just like, how did you EVER come to this conclusion???

Akhos, meanwhile, is mourning Patroka, and we see in a flashback that the humans they ate were siblings, so he viewed Patroka as his sister, too. Without her crystal, she is well and truly dead, and Akhos tries to attack Amalthus wer- for revenge. His strongest attack doesn't even scratch Amalthus, who seizes Akhos, berating him for looking down on him. Rex and crew do their best to fight to get Akhos back, but Amalthus is very strong and with those crystal tentacles in addition to his new size, and it's so difficult for them to gain any ground. When he asks the group why they are even trying, Zeke pipes up, saying that it's because they're all friends, and friends don't let people suffer. Amalthus laughs at the idea of being friends with Blades, plucking the crystal from Akhos' heart before flinging him aside to die reaching out to Jin. Jin, also, wants to get revenge for his friends, but Rex takes over, claiming since Amalthus is human, the humans should be the ones to take care of him.

This fight is not super hard, and there's a funny thing you can do, where you push Amalthus into the floor - hole in the floor that he ripped open, it immediately kills him and ends the fight. I love it, it's so funny!

After the gameplay, Amalthus decries his defeat and slaps his tentacles into the floor, beginning to merge his body into the World Tree itself. This, if allowed, would completely destroy the World Tree's integrity. The group rushes to try to stop him, only for a spare tentacle to go towards Jin, but Rex and green Pyra attempt to deflect it, only to be tossed aside. In thanks for this, at the next attack, Jin freezes the tentacles in place, climbs to his feet, and advances on Amalthus. Nia asks for why he never killed her, to which he mournfully responds that she deserved the chance to become the Blade of someone she trusted, like he did once.

With a promise to- from Rex to meet with the Architect, Jin steps up to Amalthus and uses his utter control over ether to freeze the very air into thousands and thousands of harpoons. Jin drains the last of his lifeforce to stab through and freeze solid the single most dangerous threat Alrest has ever seen. Even in his dying breaths, Amalthus screams to the heavens, asking why the Architect is abandoning him even though he lived his entire life the way he thought the Architect wanted him to. He evaporates, leaving Jin standing alone, and then he, too, fades into the ether, with a smile of pride and relief on his face.

1 last time, the group has no choice but to press on and make their last steps to complete their journey into Elysium. They advance to the final elevator and take it up, following Malos into the stars.

I mean that literally. The gang enters out into what we see from the outside is a spinning mi-disc of metal, like a space station, and they can see out the windows the corona of the planet and space beyond. The final chapter begins with a very lengthy scene explaining so much and also so little at once, so let me take a moment to explain all that before resuming with Rex's group.

In the year 20xx, in that very same place, which the cutscene calls the First Low Orbit Station Rhadamanthus, a certain sector of scientists are witnessing a fight in the skies over the planet, amongst machines that look an awful lot like Siren, Aion, and Ophion. Some of them are trying to attack the Station, and some are protecting it - the scientists are tracking how many are falling, and the 6- over 60% of their defensive Artifices are down. Eventually, 1 man exclaims that the attackers will capture the station soon if nothing is done, and the Director gives the order to initialize Aion and fire the Conduit. An issue is immediately raised, however: Conduit access is locked to 1 scientist, Professor Klaus. (XBC1 fans will recognize that name and all of this!)

Cut to Klaus himself, who is initializing his own experiment with the Conduit. He goes on to claim that his experiment is going to birth a new universe, bringing humanity closer to divinity! This, he believes, is their only chance at saving their situation, their space station. A colleague, who should look familiar from the ID Rex found on the giant warped humanoid, tries to talk him out of firing the experiment, but he does so anyway. The line orbiting the Earth, from station to station to station and back again, burns up with light, and when the circle completes, the planet explodes, forming what looks like a Big Bang-like event.

At the very end of the cutscene, we see a shadowy figure floating in the middle of a cavernous dim room, stating,"The time has come..."

At last, we are back to the group, and they have now reached Rhadamanthus. As they all take in the exceptional view, there is a familiar sound to 2: the church bells from the Aegis' memory of Elysium. They race off in their excitement towards the source of the sound.

Cut to Malos coming into the room with the floating figure, addressing the figure as "Father," and he in return names Malos "Logos." A meaningless name, he continues. Malos disregards this, demanding to get straight to the point, the reason why he's there. His attacks cannot touch the Architect, however, and there's no reason, he explains, as he is fading and will soon be gone. The Architect then lets Malos do whatever he likes without intervention. Malos demands to know whether his choices are even HIS choices, which his father confirms is a choice "you made together." Malos commends this, thanks him for creating him, and goes off to take control of it all.

Back to the kids. On the opposite side of the impressive space view, is an entryway, like TSA at an airport. Beyond that, some flags bearing that same green hillside scene upon which Rex met Pyra, and a gargantuan closed door that begins to open ever so slowly on their approach. And on the other side...

The Elysium of the Aegis' dream is a wonder scape, full of greenery and peace. But on the other side of the doors is nothing but sand and dry and ruin, as far as the eye can see. The hill where they met overlooks the entirety of Elysium, an enclosed life dome full of nothing but death, not even decay anymore. That church bell keeps ringing even as the group struggles to come to grips with this reality, and they head off to track it down. Pyra is taking it the hardest after Rex, becoming mute and distraught as they decide to chase the peal.

The church doors open to the group on their own, and when they enter, a voice speaks directly to them from nowhere, welcoming them in as the voice's children. Pyra recognizes the voice shakily, calling "Father?" The voice invites them in further, pulling back the altar to reveal a mechanical staircase leading into the station.

As they descend, Rex suddenly finds himself alone - his friends have vanished. He runs forward, and bumps into some Ardainian soldiers, suddenly on the Ardainian Titan. But these soldiers have ancient gear, and Rex is terribly confused. He spots a skull, begins to run, then finds himself in Torigoth suddenly, with Nia and Dromarch there. He greets them excitedly, only for them to return with anger, spite, jealousy over Pyra, and combat. Rex has to fight them off, and then runs off again rather than finish it off. He finds himself in Mor Ardain again, and this time he has to face Morag and Brighid's anger, the rage at Rex being the leader despite being so green, the agony over being here for something useless when her countrymen are all dying by the boatload. He falls through the floor, landing in the abandoned factory, where they face off. He runs again when Morag is about to finish him, running to the Cliffs of Morytha, where Tora, Poppi, Zeke, and Pandoria now reprimand him for being a coward, a child, playing at fairytales, Tora admitting to his jealousy that someone like Rex is a natural Driver, questioning his true desires for continuing to be the Aegis' Driver and absorbing all that fame and glory. This time, Rex DOES fight back, knocking down the ruins at the Cliffs, and as he's in the middle of trying to dig them out, Gramps questions his actions. In the split second he pauses, we are back to the beginning of the game, Rex's hut on Azurda's back, in the middle of the Cloud Sea. Azurda simply and morosely questions the Blade-Titan life cycle, questions if Rex ever considered what it was like to exist for eternity with no clear purpose or goal. If Rex ever considered what it was like to drift endlessly, for eons compared to humans, carting around humans, if that would be the sum total of Azurda's existence, in subservience to humans.

Finally, finally, as Rex is about to break, he awakens in Fonsett Village. Alone, still, but the lights are on in his house. Pyra and Mythra are both there, finishing preparations on dinner. Pyra pulls him into the house, excitedly announcing the meal is only his favorites. Mythra is also there, as her own body, and politely plates up his food and offers him bread, grabbing his choices for him, and even offering wine jokingly. When Rex points out that she's being pretty nice, Mythra deflects - she's always nice to him, right? And then Pyra gets on his case for not washing his an- hands before eating, scrutinizing him once he comes back in. Rex is still shaken but goes along with the meal, complimenting it. Mythra offers to cook next time, but Pyra swiftly rejects the idea, and Mythra gets offended: "Carbon's good for you!" She just wants to do something nice for Rex, too, but not cooking, apparently. Rex tries to intervene, to claim he's okay with just them being here, but breaks down sobbing in the middle, as he is still overwhelmed with everyone's true feelings. Mythra moves to comfort him by brushing away his tears. And Pyra, cringing at Rex's pain, asks her father to stop it.

Screen goes dark. Suddenly all of the characters get lit up with their own spotlights, and everyone save Rex are muddle-minded, confused, faintly recalling what they were just doing to Rex. The voice from before explains this was to examine their intentions and feelings, and another light comes down to light up the speaker, who introduces himself as Klaus, the Architect of this world. Those ghosts were actually not the real persons, but some of their deepest desires and fears made real, which Klaus only did to measure how humanity has changed. He admits that these fears and desires are not true, that their true forms before him are enough to succeed his measurements.

Rex just glosses past all that and explains how he began his quest, because of Pyra. Klaus then goes on to explain in more detail what we saw at the beginning of the chapter, his intentions to rid humanity of their greed and desires by using the Conduit as he did, and then expanding on what happened afterward: the Conduit experiment ripped almost everything of the world into disparate dimensions, leaving behind only Morytha and half of Klaus' body. The other half is in another dimension (wink wink, nudge nudge), leaving a black swirling abyss in its place. And not even that will remain for much longer, as the other self's demise is quickly drawing close (wink wink, nudge nudge). Klaus claims his torn form and his remaining all alone is punishment for his own act of hubris, and explains that all of his efforts from that point on are a form of atonement.

To atone for destroying everything, he made a new particle that can disassemble matter and reassemble it into new stuff - these particles came together to form the Cloud Sea. Next, to atone for killing all life, he gathered up all the vessels on the station storing memories of the world's former lifeforms and scattered them into the Cloud Sea. When they bonded with the particles making up the clouds, they became Core Crystals and gave rise to Titans, which then provided the landmass required for evolution to come forth out of the crystals' stored memories. Klaus was still worried about this new world, however, particularly concerned someone like him would rise again. And as his final measure of atonement, he created the Blades to protect against this possibility, allowing humanity to bond with Core Crystals to generate forms that could help protect or destroy the world based on the wielder's whim. He was not in control of Blades, however, and while he has always had the ability to watch over his humanity, the collection of data orchestrated by the Blades to ensure his fears would not come to pass was handed over to the Trinity Processor, the 3 cores of immense power that were interfacing with the Conduit and enabling its power to trickle into the world. 1 of them vanished into a different world (hmm, I wonder who that is), leaving the other 2, Logos and Pneuma, to become the ultimate Blade information repositories, with the ability to become Blades themselves if ever someone awoke them.

Klaus explicitly names the 2 processor cores as Pyra - as Malos and Pyra, respectively. The true form of Pyra and Mythra is officially named Pneuma because of this cutscene. The information Blades collect is all on evolutionary pressures, their specific bonded humans, etc., and this data gets transformed from the Aegises, sent back to the Blades and Titans to create new Blades, who in turn become new Titans who give birth to new Blades and new biological creatures, etc. A totally new circle of life for all things, invented by 1 man who had made the biggest mistake anyone could make and had the limitless power to make whatever he imagined to correct it.

Klaus also explicitly states that all the warped humanoids in Morytha were originally real humans. The thing he mentions next is clarifying that Core Crystals were initially invented to be a replacement for human brain cells, and I want to geek about- out about this for just a quick minute, since this is getting to be a very long episode! This makes sense why almost all rare Blades from the random system are humanoid, why even most of the common Blades are humanoid, why Nopon Drivers are extremely rare - Core Crystal tech was based on human brains, and were used to store human memories. Of COURSE Nopon would have a hard time bonding with that, they aren't humans! Of COURSE Blades are mostly humanoid, they are coming from human memories! Like, ugh, that's so cool! One might even say that the rare Blades are, in fact, the remnants of the human that originally gave those memories, which is, like, mind-blowing, just think about that for a second, the remnants of Klaus' humanity interacting with the new one evolved from his engineering to prevent another him from happening.

Agh, I love it!

This all of course leads to an important question: did Klaus' experiment work? In a long way, Klaus eventually states that, no, his new humanity is not different from the old. This is why he did nothing and has done nothing, did not interfere when Amalthus stole the processors, did not interfere when Malos began to destroy all of his creations. He believes his experiment was doomed from the start, and resolved himself to letting it all fade into a - into obscurity.

That is, until Rex and Pneuma, and the bond they fostered, the life they literally share. Additionally, the Conduit is stirring again, responding to the same - the Master Driver powers Rex controls are directly from the Conduit.

As he is explaining all of this, the station begins to shake. Malos has regained access to the Artifices stored in the station and is using them to begin the assault on Alrest. When Klaus asks Rex what he intends to do, Rex firmly responds he WILL stop Malos, and then equally as seriously says he'll punch him in the face and then get a drink with him afterwards. Not kill him or hurt him - just make him see the error of his ways. Klaus seems to accept this, apologizing for the burden he gave Pyra and Mythra, only for them to reject it, as without the burden they would not have their cherished memories.

Klaus, as a final parting gesture before the group runs off to fulfill their destiny, passes all control and passwords for Elysium to Pneuma, forcing her into green form, so she can do what needs to be done. He is fading rapidly, and once he is gone, he warns, so too will the Conduit and Rex's limitless powers fade.

Rex pauses on the way out, to ask if Klaus has changed his mind about the world. Klaus honestly answers that he is, at that specific moment, happy to have met the group. Rex nods his agreement, thanks his creator for their life, and runs off to stop Malos.

Pneuma knows exactly where Malos would have gone: Aion's hangar. It's a few levels above and a long ways down the station, and once they get there, Malos has finished priming Aion for boarding. Malos congratulates Rex on his timing, and enjoins him to witness the final act from the front row. When told Torna is dead, he commends them coldly on achieving their desired oblivion. Rex angrily asks if this is what MALOS truly wants, rather than Amalthus' will being funneled through him. When he tries to convince him otherwise, Malos roars at him that he doesn't care about Rex's opinion or the life cycle - "that man" had lost everything, he says, except his life because he couldn't lose his life, in order to keep her memories alive. The words she spoke cursed him to live without her, and that is enough for Malos to want to end the world, because Jin's anguish was caused by Malos himself. He's just a wretched being, destined to destroy the wretched world, and nothing can change that. He starts Aion and merges into Aion's cockpit, a cross-shaped green core in the center of the Artifice's chest, and challenges them to show him the full extent of they-their ideals. "Show me why you're here in this world!"

Aion's fight is tough - it has an OHKO move if you take too long, and it has 2 phases, separated by everyone but mostly Rex doing their best to change his mind even as they're trying to defeat him. The Artifices he has under his control are on Alrest's surface, rending Titans asunder. They show no sign of stopping, and neither does Malos, him challenging Rex as much as Rex is challenging him. Jin, he pleas, didn't really want to die, he wanted a reason to live, a reason to smile again, and wanted that to be Malos. Despite how much he killed and destroyed, Rex is ready to forgive him knowing his true intentions, and even he, Malos, he contends, used to think like that once.

At the end of this bisecting cutscene, Klaus gets a message from his other half - "This game has no connection to Xenoblade Chronicles 1" my plush butt - and urges the crew to hurry...

The fight finally ends with 1 super-powered Siren strike funneled through Pneuma's sword directed straight at Aion. This pierces straight into Aion's control center, hitting Malos square in the chest. He un-merges from the machine as it explodes, powering down, his purple cross Core Crystal blinking and cracked in his chest. Just in time, too - we see a portal open above the cross-shaped Conduit, signaling its departure from the world. Klaus gives 1 last gift to the world before he, too, fades from existence, leaving his creations to inherit the world and their own consequences.

Down on Alrest, the Artifices have stopped; Malos is truly defeated. As he begins to fade into the ether, he laments not meeting Rex sooner. Rex wishes he could have been his Driver, but Malos laughs in spite. He could only ever have 1 Driver, and events could have only led to the same fate. In death, though, he admits it wasn't a bad life, and fades away with a smile.

The group mourns for a moment. And then the station begins to rattle - without the power of the Conduit, Elysium cannot sustain its position in space, and the World Tree will crash into and destroy Alrest. Pneuma quickly consults her newfound knowledge for an explanation or solution - after a moment, she states there is a control center several levels below where they can fire some boosters to stabilize the station. Off they go - but once they get there, the bay is in fact an escape pod hangar. Rex, confused, turns for Pneuma, only to find her at the end of the bridge they crossed to get there. Not with the group. She smiles sadly at them and, with a gesture, destroys the bridge. It's too far for Rex to cross with his salvager gear, so he turns to Poppi to ask her to bring him over with her jet boosters, but Pneuma called in that favor to prevent exactly that. Poppi is REALLY torn up about this - this is the worst scene in the whole game emotionally because Rex is being a dick and Poppi is forced to make 2 friends hurt from enforcing her promise - but she staunchly refuses despite how much it hurts her. Rex can't get to her - he must abandon her. She explains from across the gap the real only way to save Alrest is to use the last of Aion's power to annihiliate the World Tree and its remnants. This is something only she can do... Zeke asks Rex to accept her decision, as the woman he loves, to show he's an adult now. Everyone says their goodbyes, and so does she: she ends up giving Rex the remainder of her Core Crystal, which pulls away from his chest, inert. He no longer needs her to survive. And she can survive without him, her literal center at this point, for at least a little while. As he is fully understanding what she means to do, she vanishes behind some falling debris, leaving him no choice but to escape as she commanded.

In Aion, Pneuma begins a 5 minute countdown, giving the team time to get a ship out of there back into the atmosphere. She thanks Rex privately for the time they've shared, and in her final moments, Malos' voice asks from beyond the grave what it was like, being alive. And she tells him with a smile.

The remainder of the team witness the implosion of Elysium from the edge of the atmosphere, the shockwave tearing apart their vessel. The final bit of Pneuma's power comes out of Azurda then, giving him his older draconic form again, so he can rescue everyone as they're falling. He flies back down to Alrest, where the Titans and Cloud Sea have all disappeared... But, across a chasm at the edge of the exposed Land of Morytha, there is an ocean. Real water, not clouds. In the distance is landmass, not Titan but real continental shelf. The other Titans are traversing this way, too, racing ahead of tiny Azurda to join with the land. No more relying on Titan bodies for livable land, no more fighting on that front. You may think this is Klaus' last gift, but you are wrong. This is-was his penultimate gift. This is the True Elysium. Cue credits, and also cue end-credits scene. 

In Rex's hand as they finish their flight in to Elysium, while bits of the sky station fly overhead as shooting stars, the green cross Core Crystal in his hands begins to flash, and then glow, and then suddenly it's blindingly bright green.

The lyrics to the ending song at this moment croon: "Can I ask you God? Despite all of this.../ Could the sandglass somehow take back the time?/ One last time is all I ask from you/ Can you please spare me a time with the one man I loved?/ I wouldn't care how and where it should be/ But I need one last time/ I wanna tell you/ How I feel inside for you/ I want you to know..."

At the end of the credits, at the end of the glow, both Pyra and Mythra are reborn into the world, separate from each other. Whoever was chosen, at the end of the lyrics, it zooms in on their mouth speaking without subtitles. Rex looks downcast, and then smiles, and goes to join them.

There is a LOT of debate about what the girls say. The data files for unused subtitles say "Hello, I'm X," implying either the girls got their wish and forgot their suffering OR they are choosing to introduce themselves the traditional Blade way now that they are being awoken like traditional Blades. The Japanese lip movements are actually differently rendered, and look closer to the word "Tadaima," which means "I'm home," further implying that they remember things, at least enough to know Rex is their home.

I personally see whichever girl - for me, it's always Pyra - saying, "I love you, Rex" or "I'm home, Rex." And thus, boy met girl.

So, that's it for me today! If you liked this 2 hours of power, be sure to give the episode a like, and let me know you... what you think using #VGTAegis . Today's opening and ending themes are, respectively, the Tantal Day Theme from the Xenoblade Chronicle 2 OST, composed specifically by ACE, all caps, *meow* and - oh, hi, kitty kitty - and Elysium in the Dream from the same album, the leitmotif of the entire game, composed by specifically Yasunori Mitsuda. Special thanks as well to Manami Kiyota and Kenji Hiramatsu, who helped compose the rest of the score in addition to the 2 I mentioned - this soundtrack is absolutely magical and deserves all the praise in the world. All links to opening and ending themes and various other things will be in the description. My rant and thanks over with, thank you for your time today and have a good weekend! Bye!