Let's play Lords of Xulima

What's all this, then?

Lords of Xulima (SHOO-lee-ma) is an RPG by Spanish developer Numantian Games, released in November 2014 and available at a Steam near you.

Why is this a game anyone should care about? Because it's a CRPG with the battle system of a JRPG, and that's great. It takes its structure from games like Baldur's Gate or Planescape: Torment, then it removes their clunky combat systems with something more similar to Final Fantasy. The result is one of the most engrossing RPG experiences I've had in years. Let's play this game.


Our story begins

Lords of Xulima is the story of a man named Gaulen and the five friends who accompany him on a journey to Xulima, the lost land of the Xulnari -- the nine gods who departed this world long ago.

The first thing we need to do is to create those five friends. Let's look at our options.



Explorer
Uses axes, swords, bows
Gaulen himself is the only fixed character the game has, which means the game can have a character-centric story with a player-defined party. It's easy to think that Gaulen is a pretty bad character, but he has all of the game's truly indispensable skills in one package, and after a few levels, he learns one of the best offensive abilities in the game. It's a good idea to have some of those indispensable skills on another character, since otherwise Gaulen will end up starved for skill points, but because Gaulen exists, it's possible to make it through the game with any combination of five other party members.

Arcane Soldier
Uses swords, bows
Consensus on the Arcane Soldier seems to be that it's the worst class in the game. It's not a character archetype that appeals to me, so I've never used one, but from what I can tell, it's an inferior version of the Mage. Early on, the Arcane Soldier can add elemental properties to attacks, and later in the game, the Arcane Soldier gets most of the Mage's spell library. Because magic damage is fixed, getting access to those spells later might as well be never. If there's anything nice to be said about this class, it's that it doesn't suffer from the severe MP issues that plague the Soldier.

Mage
Uses polearms, daggers
Now, speaking of MP issues, the Mage is the flashiest class in the game, casting spells later on that cost well in excess of half your party's maximum MP. There's no denying the Mage's efficacy, but if you want your Mage to stay relevant throughout the game, you'll have to dump a lot of skill points into spells that are quickly rendered obsolete. The Mage is one of a few classes with the Object Identification skill, which allows you to figure out which end of the sword to hold without having to visit a merchant.

Thief
Uses swords, daggers, bows, shuriken
The developers really love their utility classes, as evidenced by Gaulen himself. The Thief is further evidence of this: if you can supply him with shuriken, he goes from being the most useful class outside of combat to the most useful inside combat, too. If you don't have a Thief, then shuriken are merchant fodder. Worth noting: Gaulen has the Thief's vital skills, but he pays more to learn them.

Cleric
Uses polearms, maces
A common complaint levied at this game is that you absolutely need a Cleric. Strictly speaking, this is not true. Practically speaking, it might be. The Cleric is not the only healer, but it is the most effective by far. The Cleric's offensive power is negligible until the middle of the game, when you unlock spells that are effective against demons and undead, but even then, this class is a healbot, make no mistake.

Divine Summoner
Uses polearms, daggers
The Divine Summoner carries the dubious distinction of being the class with the lowest innate health total. As the name suggests, it summons heralds of the gods to assist you in combat. This is a really cool class, but to make good use of it, you really want four frontline-capable allies so that you can put your summoned allies into the back row. More on that later, but for now, if you want one of these, please vote for his more durable friends as well.

Paladin
Uses maces, polearms
I've heard it suggested that the best party is four Paladins and a Mage. This probably overstates the effectiveness of the Paladin, but it's a solid all-rounder: a martial class that can heal. The Paladin is notable in the early game for having the only AOE heal. It's weak, but it's your best option against early AOE enemies. Later, the Paladin acts as a buffbot in boss battles, putting up a party-wide defensive buff that might just be the best in the game. Later, it learns most of the Cleric's repertoire, but it has neither the MP nor the spare skill points to really supplant the Cleric.

Barbarian
Uses maces, swords, axes
GUTS SMASH. The Barbarian is notable for two things: no MP and the Rage skill. Rage increases the Barbarian's critical hit rate and consumes the lion's share of its skill points. Barbarians have very few other skills, but they hit hard enough and have enough health that you can afford not to care.

Bard
Uses bows, daggers
The game's dedicated buffbot, Bards suffer from the limitation that their songs can only affect adjacent allies. This means that you have to have a very specific party arrangement to make the best use of them, and Bards don't really come into their own until very late in the game, when they learn a song that combines the buffs of all of their previous songs. If you can handle having a subpar teammate that long, then you'll end up with the most powerful ally the game has to offer.

Soldier
Uses maces, swords, axes, bows, polearms
The Soldier is a more martially-inclined Arcane Soldier. Along with the Paladin and Arcane Soldier, the Soldier learns the four "add non-elemental effects to your weapons" skills, and along with the Barbarian, it's the only class that only has to spend one skill point on its weapon skill. The Soldier does nothing that can't be duplicated by another class, but it's the best class there is at everything it does, especially for wearing heavy armor.


So, then...

As it happens, there are a lot of decisions to make for each character: name, gender, portrait, class, what kind of weapon to use, which of the Xulnari to worship -- but for our purposes, let's stick to picking five characters' name, gender, portrait, and class. I'll try to make a playable party out of your suggestions.

Speaking of portraits, the game has 32 of them to pick from: 16 for each gender. (As far as I know, this is the only difference gender makes in the game.) It also lets you use your own. You know what to do.

GUTS SMASH.

Explorer, Cleric, Paladin, Soldier, Divine Summoner.

Five female bards!

From what I can tell, the Explorer is The Protagonist and also Unique, so the final party will be Explorer + five other classes, totaling six members in all.

Yes, this.

Is the Cleric the squishy white mage/priest variety or the OP armored D&D type?

More white mage than D&D. You could build an armored frontline Cleric if you wanted. It would be better than a frontline Bard, but chances are good that if you want a Cleric in front, then you'd be better served with a Paladin. Both of them suffer Multiple Attribute Dependency in the front, but Cleric would need a heavy CON investment to stay alive, whereas Paladin has better innate HP and can focus STR without suffering too much in other areas.

I am contractually obligated to demand we have a bard up in here.

Sounds like you'll need to deal with their circumstance penalty for most of the game but you should be used to that by now, right?

Normally I dislike this class, but... I think a Paladin would be good.

My overall preference is Paladin, Mage, Thief, Bard, Soldier.

I bolded the ones I'd really like to see, but Soldier seems like it'd be fun.

I really want to play this game, but I always get stuck at character creation (or when having to invest skill points manually) in these games. And the game is said to be really hard even on the easiest difficulty, so I couldn't convince myself to play it yet, even though I purchased it on launch day to support the developer.

If you go for Paladin and Bard, the best setup is:
XPX
XBX

Because Paladins and Bards have effect that affect all positioned in a 3x3 field around them and if you do it like this, both can affect all.

That leaves two slots front and two slots back.

I'm personally thinking of going:
Explorer, Paladin, Thief
Mage, Bard, Cleric

We should have a female soldier named Samus based on the 2nd row left portrait, a male thief using the bottom right portrait, GUTS the barbarian, a summoner, and probably a healbot cleric.

Fine, add a bard. So Bard, Cleric, Paladin, Soldier, Divine Summoner.

Aw man, I'd love to read this, but this game is sitting in my Steam queue and I don't want to spoil myself. Have fun!

Paladin auras affect the entire party, regardless of positioning. Are those your votes or just the party you intend to use?


Bard is a shoo-in for our first party member, but we still need an identity for our mystery minstrel. Keep your votes coming, too.

Can it be me?! Can I be the bard?!

If we've got a bard, it's got to be the David Bowie lookalike on the top row 3rd from the left. Maybe name him Jareth?

Name them all Bardbella

No, if we have a bard, it's going to be the guitarist from Mad Max.

THAT IS WHAT BARDS CAN BE.

Are you sure? Because all the guides say otherwise.

Now that you mention it, I might just think that because my Paladin is centrally positioned. The guides are probably right.

NEXT TIME ON LET'S PLAY LORDS OF XULIMA: You submit more party votes

By the way, if you feel like providing us with custom portrait goodness, the game expects 240x320 PNGs.

you mentioned that if we go with a summoner to have 4 front row capable people. Is a thief front row capable by being dodgy? If so,

Thief, Barbarian, Paladin, Explorer on the front row
Cleric, Summoner on the back row

If thief needs to be in the back row, then sub the summoner out for a mage.
(alternatively, keep the thief in the front anyways and name him FUKT)

The barbarian should be named Conan with the appropriate portrait or use the 2nd portrait on the top row for males.

Well, I just finished the game. I'm ready to play again with a new group.



Oh.

Oh my.

We're still looking for votes! Right now, the party in the lead is Bard, Cleric, Paladin, Divine Summoner, and Thief.

We also need personalities for our party -- you can vote for these separately from your votes for our party members. Tentatively, we have Solitayre the Bard and GUTS the Barbarian, even though we don't actually have a Barbarian in the party.

The cleric, paladin, and divine summoner should be followers of Qazlal, The Shining One, and Makhleb respectively. Call it the Odd Couple of divine retribution or something.

My boring vote is Cleric, Paladin, Thief, Mage and Barbarian.

Divine Summoner sounds like a neat class but kind of a pain to actually play with.

A barbarian could be OK, but I think that might be the RPG type I'm getting most bored of. It doesn't even sound like they hinder the party or do anything interesting in this game. Just lots of Rage and critical hits, I suppose.

paladin: Cecil
Bard: Edward
Summoner: Rydia
Cleric: Rosa
Thief: Edge

I know, its obvious, but someone had to suggest it...

So. Lords of Xulima has a plot, and it's not bad, as RPG plots go... but it has a lot of words.

I'm not particularly interested in transcribing the entire game. The introductory cutscene in particular is redundant if you've read the game's promotional material and unclear if you haven't, so allow me to paraphrase.

zzz

HEY GAULEN

buh wha

GAULEN IT'S ME

IT'S GOLOT

Oh. Hey.

GOT SOMETHING REALLY IMPORTANT FOR YOU TO DO

SEE, YUL IS FIGHTING THE REST OF THE XULNARI AND IT'S NOT GOING SO WELL FOR US

AND THAT'S BAD FOR YOU TOO

Aren't there eight of you and just one of him?

WELL THIS IS REAL EMBARRASSING

I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT, BUT I PROMISE YOU'LL FIGURE IT OUT IN, LIKE, THE ENDING CUTSCENE

ANYWAY YOU NEED TO GO TO XULIMA

Why me?

YOU'RE THE ONLY ONE WE COULD FIND THAT KNOWS HOW TO USE A COMPASS

Am I going to remember any of this when I wake up?

PROBABLY NOT LOL

This cutscene will get reprised in like five seconds. First, though, we need to create a party.



I mentioned other character options. This is one of them: each character has to pick one of the nine Xulnari to worship, and each one confers a different minor benefit.

Yes, Yul is there in the bottom right, despite being the game's ostensible antagonist. Gaulen is a disciple of Golot (+4% experience earned), but we have control over our other characters.

Our Paladin will worship Golot as well. The Cleric and Thief will go with Taliet for +5% combat speed. The Summoner really wants to go early, so she'll worship Valvet for +15% initiative. The Bard needs all the experience he can get, so he'll also worship Golot.

If you're curious, Yul gives +3 to all resistances, which probably isn't the worst of the lot, but neither is it worth picking. Right now, the choice is purely mechanical. We will get the option to do more Yul-worship later, though, and I have no idea if it makes a difference in the story.

Speaking of the story, have another cutscene.




tl;dr The great continent of Rodinia is ravaged by war. Golot and friends take a boat to Xulima, making them the first Rodinia-born to set foot on the island.



I hate sailing.
I don't know. I think it's--
Hold on. Who invited him? Where's Kain?
He couldn't make it.
Yang? FuSoYa? Tellah? Cid? Heck, I'd even take Palom or Porom over him.
Look, I know you have misgivings, but I have it on good authority that Edward is really good at higher levels.
I'm more worried about Rydia and Rosa coming along. It's going to be dangerous!
Hold on. Who invited him?
Sigh.

SOON...



The party finds some coins on a corpse.

I have a good feeling about this!



They also find some mushrooms and decide to ignore them.

Let's take a minute to talk about optimal play in Lords of Xulima.


It's terrible. Don't try it. Really, do yourself a favor.

The mushrooms are a good example. Ten of a mushroom will give you a minor bonus, like +1 to a stat on the character of your choice. I can pick these mushrooms now and get one of each. I can instead pick them when Gaulen is level 30 and get five of each.

And technically, that's not even optimal, because you have a chance to get five at a much lower level, so there's no need to increase the skill beyond that point -- you can just save and reload if you don't get the maximum.

Don't play Lords of Xulima optimally. I'll come back to this topic later.

THAT SAID: I'm not picking these mushrooms today because a single mushroom is no good. I'm at least going to wait until I have a chance to get ten of a kind.

Now back to your regularly scheduled program.



Food tutorial. Here's the deal with food:

Oh, uh. Actually, the tutorial covered it all. So just read that.

Although let me add that resting is available almost anytime, making food both a clock and a health reserve. Late in the game, it's trivial to keep your food topped off, since food sources are so abundant, but for now, we can consider food to be a semi-limited resource.

This is just one of the reasons that the start of the game is the hardest part.



By Golot, a human settlement!
What I wouldn't give for a warm bath.
Oh hey look monsters!
Let's go there instead!
H-hold on! We need to make sure I'm not in the front row!
What, so you want me to take hits for you?
Well, when you put it that way... good idea!

AND SO



This is stupid.
I'm in the front? I -- I mean, of course I'm in the front! That makes total sense I'm gonna die
Remind me again how you're not entirely useless.
I brought three shurikens with me!
...
...
(I wonder if it's still too late to ask Yang to come.)

NEXT TIME ON LET'S PLAY LORDS OF XULIMA: COMBAT