Shulk's Scrapbook

Trivia

Fun facts, interesting characterization details, or lore tidbits I've gleaned from studying the collectopaedia items in more detail than anyone was ever meant to.

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Naming Statistics

  1. The most common letter for items to start with is S, with 44 total items.
  2. No items start with the letters X or Z.
  3. Only one item each start with the letter Q and Y.
  4. The majority of items are two words long.
  5. Only 6 items are one word long, and three of those were introduced in Future Connected (Shimmertumble, Kilopumpkin, and Nanoceros). Sarsaparilla, Dobercorgi, and Stardrop are the other three.
  6. Black is the color most often used in item names, with 11 total items. White is second with 9. Blue is tied with white if you count Bluesky Bark, or third if you don't.
  7. There are 3 cat items (Humming Cat, Mane Cat, and Yellow Cat, compared to only one dog (Dobercorgi).
  8. There are only two "tree" items, Mist Tree and Missing Tree. Coincidentally, they are both next to each other when all items are sorted alphabetically.
  9. The most common type of bug in the collectopaedia is "beetle," with 8 of the 36 bugs being beetles.

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Character Trivia

Shulk

  1. Shulk dislikes the color gold.
    • There are six items with "gold" in their name. Of these six, Golden Cog is the only one that Shulk receives any affinity boost from (with +2).
    • Gold Burdock drops his affinity the most of any item, with -18.
    • The description for Gold Dust Illusion says "a starry-eyed Shulk named this"; yet even that item gives him -2 affinity.
    • This trend extends to even some items that are described as gold without it being in the name, such as Ether Mine's Love Crane.
    • My headcanon based on this is that Shulk grew to dislike the color gold after associating it with Zanza later in the game.
  2. Shulk likes the color blue.
    • Out of twelve items with "blue" in the name, the only one that gives him negative affinity is Blue Root.
    • Blue Chain is his top favorite item after Love Source, giving him 30 affinity points.
    • Even items without blue in the name and only in the description, such as Strong Screw and Shield Bug, give Shulk a large amount of affinity.
    • I think this is especially interesting since Shulk wears red and is associated with red via the Monado, but his true Monado (Monado III) is a teal or light blue:
      Click to show Monado images (taken from the xenoblade wiki)

Reyn

  1. Reyn has an affinity for animals. There is only one animal that will net you negative affinity with Reyn: Venomous Lizard (and even that is only -2).
  2. The names Reyn picks for Strange collectables are rather eloquent. It seems surprising since everyone makes fun of Reyn for not thinking, but he picks some of the fanciest-sounding names in my opinion, such as Devious Gravity, Dramatic Night, Rainbow Zirconia, and Steel Hauyne.
    • Zirconia and hauyne are both gemstone types, so this also might imply that Reyn knows a bit about gems.

Dunban

  1. The most affinity Dunban gets from any item is 20, not including the Love Source. Prairie Dragonfly gives him 20 affinity points.
    • This is the lowest max affinity of any of the characters. (Melia has the 2nd least, with a max of 22 from Dobercorgi.)
    • This also means that Love Source is the only item to give Dunban 3 hearts at once, as 22 is the cut-off for giving 3 hearts.
  2. Many of Dunban's most-prefered items are Parts. Despite Nature being his preferred category, no Nature collectables give him more than 16 affinity points, while three parts give him 18: Blue Gear Shard, Gold Condenser, and Angel Engine Y.
    • The only other item to grant 18 points is Death Bangle, a Strange collectable.
  3. Dunban's favorite animal is Ether Penguin, which grants him 12 affinity points.
  4. Despite the heart-to-heart "True Natures" implying Dunban dislikes flowers, there are several that he enjoys. Stardrop, which is mentioned by Melia in the heart-to-heart, grants Dunban 12 affinity points. The same amount of affinity is granted by Ether Rose, Sea Berry, Despair Clover, and Abyss Heather.
    • This is especially interesting as one of the reasons Dunban cites for disliking flowers is "their pungent smell," and Ether Rose is specifically described as having a "stench [that] keeps creatures away."
  5. Heart Peach and Deadly Kiwi are Dunban's favorite fruits, giving him 4 affinity points each.
  6. Ether Plum is Dunban's least favorite fruit, and least favorite item overall, netting him -20 affinity points. This matches his described distaste for sweet things, as the item's description calls it "a satisfyingly sweet plum that is popular with the ladies."

Melia

  1. Melia likes the color purple.
    • Purple Lamp is one of her favorite items, giving her a solid 18 affinity points.
    • Doomsday Poppy and Rumble Box are two other items described as being purple that give her a lot of affinity.
    • While not described as purple explicitly, Amethyst Melon can be assumed to be purple, and is Melia's favorite fruit (giving her 20 affinity points).
    • No purple items, even ones just mentioned in their descriptions, give Melia negative affinity.

Fiora

  1. Fiora's favorite item is Blood Worm, not counting the Love Source. It grants her 26 affinity points.
    • Funnily, this is one of Dunban's least favorite items, with -16 points for him (only passed by Ether Plum with -20). I can picture them having a silly sibling argument about this, especially since Dunban usually likes bugs (though granted, the game categorizes Blood Worm as an animal and not a bug).

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Other Game Tie-Ins

Note: I haven't played Xenoblade 2, so if any of these are facts are expounded upon there, I may find out eventually. Or I might not. Anyway, forgive me for implying that XBC3 changed things from 1 that were already changed in 2.

Xenoblade X

  1. There is no overlap in collectable items between Xenoblade 1 (including Future Connected) and Xenoblade X. This is the only Xenoblade game for which this is the case.
  2. Xenoblade X is the only game besides Xenoblade 1 to have descriptions for its collectable items.
  3. The collection in this game is spelled "Collectopedia" as opposed to Xenoblade 1's "Collectopaedia."

Xenoblade 3: Future Redeemed

  1. Rainbow Zirconia is listed as a "Parts" collectable in Future Redeemed, despite it being listed as "Strange" in the original Xenoblade Chronicles.
    • This may be due to the "Strange" category not existing in Future Redeemed, but it would still have made more sense to categorize it as something that didn't exist in the original game (such as "Ore" or "Shells").
  2. Gypsum Branch is now categorized as a "Wood" in Future Redeemed, which makes sense based on the name. However, the original description calls it "A Branch from the ice tree" that "sends a beam of light into the sky at night." Based on the aesthetics of Valak Mountain, this "branch" is implied to actually be a piece of the large ice crystals that can be seen throughout the area. So is it a wood? Is it a piece of ice? Considering what FR did to Rainbow Zirconia, we may never know.
  3. Broom Icicle is also now a wood.
  4. Emerald Snow is now an ore, despite its original Xenoblade description being "Green snow made of wind-scattered leaves accumulated over time." I suppose if you are in the "ice crystals structurally can be considered a rock" camp, you can make an argument for this making sense.

Whole Xenoblade Series Overlap

  1. "Vegetable" is the only category of collectable that is common across Xenoblade 1, 2, 3, and X. (Assuming you consider the abbreviation "Veg" to count.)
  2. "Flower" is also common across all 4 games, if you count X's "Flora" category.

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