Hope you are enjoying the playthrough so far! Y'all rock!

Here is a bit of trivia for you. The soldiers'voice lines you see (around 48:00) have been patched on the first patch of the game. The initial non-patched version of the game made it so they would be constantly repeating the words "Yer done?", "Behave", "Think you can take me?", "Dont forget me" to a point that it became a meme and a song (search YT for: the xenoblade chronicles 2 battle theme but you won't forget it). Also the "This is an Ethernet" has also become a meme :D

Your confusion with the combat mechanics is normal, it will last around 5 to 10 more hours. The difference between playing well and just playing in this game is that playing well makes combat faster. Just playing doesn't make you fail or lose, it just makes you win more slowly. You are about to know a bunch of cool characters by the way, can't wait. Have fun!

One thing you should definitely know and that the tutorial never explains: whenever you get a notification that you've unlocked something in the affinity chart, it doesnt actually unlock until you go into the affinity chart. It's somewhat important because unlocking more nodes depends on the previous one being unlocked, so it is to your benefit to quickly open the affinity chart whenever you receive such a notification. It's kind of a pain but I think they designed it that way intentionally to make you actually pay attention to the affinity chart, the criteria for unlocking them and what the perks are.

"nobody had parents it seems like" if those kids had parents they wouldn't be getting into so much troubles.

Its normal to feel lost about the combat, so far I had to explain to 2 friends how it works (1 of them was streaming the game) The game wont explain it more to you so you just gotta work your way there. ---- Below this is a quick explanation for the combos (the game wont explain it more, but dont read if you prefer to figure it out on your own) ---- Dont know if you managed it already at this point, but since tutorials are really horrible on this game, the most straightfoward way i can explain: 1) At 8:20 you used Pyra to trigger the blade combo with a lvl 1 special: The Combo pallete opened at the top right of the screen. 2) Level 1 fire is highlighted as you just did it. Possible routes you get when starting with Fire: Fire-Fire-Fire, Fire-Fire-Light, Fire-Water-Fire, Fire-Water-Ice (see the top right of the screen) 3) Each step on the route above corresponds to an increasing level. Example: Fire-Water-Fire = lvl1 Fire + lvl2 Water + lvl3 Fire (always 1-2-3, or I, II, III) 4) Blades charge their levels in sequence - I > II > III (> IV): Once lvl1 is filled, the game starts filling for lvl2, and so on 5) The trick is to figure out the exact plan how to use your blades (order and timing). Because each blade special level will reset after using them, if you use Pyra for lvl2, then you cant build up lvl3 on time and you have a timeout (see the bar decreasing right above the enemy health), reseting everything. A good chance to try with the initial party is Fire-Water-Fire: start the combo with Pyra at lvl1 (fire), wait for Nia to build up lvl2 with Dromarch (water), activate Nia's lvl2 and at the same time keep on building lvl3 with Pyra (fire) (dont use her lvl1 or lvl2, just keep building). Once Pyra's lvl3 has been reached, enable her special and you finish the combo. 6) Tip: In order to give more time for specials to charge on all characters, trigger the special attacks when the timeout bar is close to finishing. Once you get it right, the combat becomes super fun. Hope it helps :)

Happy to see you enjoying the game. Get ready to read all the long essays about game mechanics and story bits in comments 😂.

"I like Pyra" And so it begins, yet another innocent man starts his slow decent into the degeneracy, chaos and obsession that is called "being a Xenoblade 2 fan". We all have been there. One minute you say things like "I like that that sassy cat girl, she funny" and in the next one you yell at random people on Twitter about what blade would be the best Waifu/Husbando or why "Pyra is best girl and not [redacted] and certainly not {redacted]". Xenoblade made me start collecting Xenoblade amiibos wich are basically Anime figurines. I wonder what XC2 will do to you... ;)

"I like Pyra". I mean, look at her. Everybody LIKES Pyra XD Some designs for female characters in this game are pretty extreme, I don't think that Pyra's looking fits her personality. But oh well. That's one place where I used to criticize the game. Now it doesn't feel so important as back then. Gaming in general has advanced a little bit. Now we can admit that Pyra's looking is just fanservice and that's not so bad I suppose. Related to female characters tehre are worse problems in this game. But more on that in later episodes.

Tutorials are one thing not great in Xenoblade 2. They aren't good and you can't revisit then later. They fixed it and other downsides of xbc2 on torna.