Where to begin with these Xuan Yuan Sword 7 tips? As it’s an action RPG, let’s jump straight in with the thing you’ll be doing most: fightin’
Xuan Yuan Sword 7 Tips
Stances
There are four animal stances in the game and a further four escort-based stances. They are as follows:
Animals
- Ox – Stagger
- Wolf – Thrust
- Bear – Ranged
- Tiger – Kicks
Escorts
- Hundun – feather attack
- Taowu – multiple damage to those in front of you
- Tundou – Stuns
Now, this is a preference thing, perhaps, but I would say that Tiger and Bear are the best stances to use throughout the game. The default difficulty isn’t much of a challenge, so I would suggest increasing it.
Enemies are numerous and will often surround you. The advantage of the Tiger stance is it can make a sweeping attack as its special (the square button) and does a decent amount of damage. However, it’s the standard attacks that shine.
For lesser enemies, light attacks make relatively quick work of them, and for the larger ones, as a kick-focussed stance, the heavy attack will eventually stagger them so you can press R3 for an execution. Immediately after that, rinse and repeat.
Bear, like its namesake, is a strong stance, but it works well for ranged attacks. This stance was my preference for bosses using the tried and tested ‘hit and run’ method. There’s no need to spam the attacks (they’re too slow), but one or two hits is enough using the heavy attack. As for the special, you can stand back and do it as it performs a long-ranged attack from a distance.
Escort stances look the part, but (this could be my perception), the cooldown feels pretty lengthy, and they don’t always do much damage – at least to the bosses. The choice is yours.
Party Tricks
Both Xiang and Hong will join on your adventure, and both are automated. They have free will and all, so they will do their own thing. That shouldn’t stop you from investing in their gear, though, as depending on your difficulty setting, they can be lifesavers against bosses, continually attacking while your cooldowns refuel.
You should try and invest in their weapons over defence and accessories as their attack power does more damage (duh), and I never witnessed either of them getting downed in my playthrough.
So it’s good to choose the right ability, and they have two each – both of their second skills were also my preferred choice once unlocked.
Xiang’s abilities are:
- Clockwork owl – splash damage
- Gleam of dawn – straight line
Hong’s abilities are:
- Mohist blade slaughter – multiple slashes in front
- Mercy – shockwave around her
What Buildings Of Elysium Should You Work On?
The components needed for crafting is kind of in abundance, but not so much in the field, so you’ll be relying quite a lot on the Xuan Yuan Sword 7 merchants.
Each has a slightly different inventory – the higher level requirements are typically found the further you get into the game. There’s an infinite supply of the items, just not the money. So, what should you work on first?
There are five buildings:
- Weapons – 5 levels of upgrades
- Harness – 3 levels, allows for buffs to reduce burning damage and convert to health
- Accessories – 5 levels – each character can equip two items at a time
- Fusion Lab – 3 levels, mix and match your inventory to craft new items, and unlock new recipes by destroying statues and meeting the frog merchant
- Armour – 5 levels of upgrades – they don’t change your appearance
My money (rather, components) would be on weapons. You can only control yourself, so worth investing in your hit power, but don’t overlook your party members as their continual attacks will chip away at the boss gauges.
The second priority would be armour – again for yourself – don’t worry about the others. Bosses hit hard, and aside from blocking and evading, there will be cheap hits that will get you, and if your armour is bog-standard, you’ll know it. Been there…
Next would be the harness. Almost all the bosses do burning and/or bleeding damage, and the potions in Xuan Yuan Sword 7 are some of the most ineffective I’ve experienced in a game. Equipping these harnesses (there are five slots for Zaisho) will significantly help.
Accessories are a bonus but not a priority, and the Fusion Lab was more of a gimmick for me, but experiment with it, and the rewards can pay off – if you’re willing to sacrifice some items as you’ll be going in blind.
Tell Me All About It
This isn’t what you might consider a Xuan Yuan Sword 7 tip, but take your time travelling during the main missions. While there aren’t that many secrets to uncover or going off the beaten track, you’ll miss out on the dialogue if you go too quickly.
I mentioned this in the review as the only audio track is Chinese. This is fine and adds to the authenticity and all, but if you can’t understand the language, it’s harder to follow the subtitles than you may think. There’s no way to return to the dialogue, so wait until your party has finished speaking before dashing into battle.
It’s your call.
Side Quests
I wasn’t a fan of the side quests in the game as they were bona fide fetch quests with lots of backtracking. It was more of a chore than anything, coming from someone who likes a grind. Steady.
So, should you do them? Well… they pay well, and with that money, you can buy items to upgrade your gear, which is essential. As for XP, I’m on the fence as it’s quite simple to upgrade to around level 30 just by doing the main missions. It depends on whether you want to be at full power or have some degree of challenge.
Fast Travel Takes Some Time
Side quests don’t expect you to travel long distances – more short distances but repeatedly. Fast travel is pretty helpful when you’re looking for specific items, vendors, or moving around to unlock all the escorts.
Xuan Yuan Sword 7 is a large map, but it doesn’t take forever to navigate. Still, you want to jump from place to place, right? The guard stones will show on your map, so like Assassin’s Creed’s eagle spots, seek them out as it’ll help.
Saving
The game will automatically save through progress, and while you can retry boss battles, if you haven’t equipped your perfect stances, you’ll have to load a manual save to retry.
There are save points in every village that will also replenish health and head to the bonfires. It doesn’t renew health after a save, so rest first. The bonus here is you’ll get extra dialogue from your party – maybe some exposition?
Take Your Time With The Elysium Scroll
The Elysium Scroll is your last resort in boss battles, so only use it when you have a fast attack ready or have enough time to get some heavy hits in and run.
The cooldown never once filled back up in a boss battle, so use it wisely. This doesn’t apply to battles when on the go, so feel free to use it willy-nilly, but you don’t need it most of the time.
Missed Anything?
… and that’s about it really for my Xuan Yuan Sword 7 tips. It’s quite a simple yet rewarding game – one of Eastasiasoft’s best yet. The stances and upgrades are key as you don’t really need much of a strategy for combat other than hit and run when facing the bosses.
You’ll note that I’ve omitted any chess tips as I hated this part of the game and only attempted the first side quest to get it off my HUD. When I found that I could untrack it, I did precisely that.
Missed anything? Are you stuck somewhere in particular? Let me know, and I’ll see if I can help!
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