Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Poppiswap Guide - How to Upgrade Poppi, How to Play Tiger Tiger, How to Earn Ether Crystals Quickly

In Xenoblade Chronicles 2, you'll come across the artificial Blade character of Poppi, once you've encountered Tora and and undertaken a few main quests with him. In this Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Poppiswap guide, we'll be walking you through everything you need to know to get the most out of Poppi, including how to play Tiger Tiger, as well as how to earn Ether Crystals quickly.

Should you need anything else related to Xenoblade Chronicles 2, including how to get to grips with both the combat system and the HUD of this massive game, then be sure to check out our Xenoblade Chronicles 2 guides walkthrough hub.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Poppiswap Guide

Once you've come across Poppi for the first time in Xenoblade Chronicles 2, Tora will give her a slighly awkward introduction. She's effectively an AI Blade that's been constructed from scratch by Tora, and Poppi will accompany your party whenever you rotate Tora in. Tora will also briefly introduce the Poppiswap upgrade system, which you can use to change the way Poppi functions in the heat of battle.

Just above, you can see the Poppiswap upgrade chart, which allows you to use Ether Crystals and other parts you can find to upgrade the way Poppi functions on the battlefield. Every upgraded part that you add to Poppi, for example her upgrading her Element Core, will add to the amount of overall energy she consumes. Therefore, you'll have to upgrade the Energy Converter of Poppi, in order to boost her maximum energy output, and allow you to upgrade her other attributes.

But there's a whole other process to acquire the materials in order to upgrade Poppi's Energy Converter in the first place. You'll have to play the minigame of Tiger Tiger, which we'll detail in full just below.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 Tiger Tiger Guide

Tiger Tiger is introduced by Tora as the method of acquiring the upgrade parts for Poppi, and although this is true, it's quite a tough journey to get your hands on some powerful upgrade parts for the AI Blade.

As you can probably tell just from looking at it, Tiger Tiger is a retro-style game, where you have to guide your icon past various traps and enemies, all the way to the treasure at the bottom of the level, and then all the way back up again to claim your rewards. You can attack enemies using a directional attack with A, although some are significantly harder to kill than others.

It's imperative that you destroy as many enemies as possible on your way down, as when you're coming back up to complete the level after reaching the chest, you won't be able to use your directional attack, and you'll have a very small window to move out of the way of incoming hazards. You'll notice that you have an air meter in Tiger Tiger, and if this runs out due to you hitting too many obstacles, it's game over.

Just below, we've rounded up all the enemies you'll face in Tiger Tiger, as well as the various ways you can defeat them:

• Green Shark - Can be killed from any angle with one hit.
• Red Shark - Can be killed from any angle, but with multiple hits.
• Sea Urchin - Cannot be killed, but will kill you instantly you should you touch them.
• Jellyfish - Can be killed from the top with one hit.
• Turtle - Can only be killed from the bottom with one hit.
• Algae - Cannot be killed, but also cannot damage you.
• Lobster - Can be killed when hit from below.
• Angerfish - Can be killed from either side with a single hit.
• Giant Pirahna - Usually found near the treasure chest at the bottom, they can be killed from above.
• Shrimp - Can be killed from either side.

Although obtaining the treasure chest at the bottom of the level and successfully making it back to the top will reward you with upgrade parts for Poppi, you can bag yourself many Ether Crystals and other rewards by claiming the various smaller chests on your way down. All of this culminates in the reward screen just below, and you can see that through beating the Tiger Tiger level, we managed to obtain parts would have otherwise cost thousands of Ether Crystals to craft from scratch.

Xenoblade Chronicles 2 How to Upgrade Poppi

But if you do want to upgrade Poppi the hard way, then spending Ether Crystals through the Poppiswap upgrade screen just below is your main way of going about obtaining specific upgrade parts for the AI Blade. You'll have to play Tiger Tiger a lot though, as the minigame is the only way of acquiring Ether Crystals, which can then use to craft brand new Poppi parts in the Poppiswap upgrade system.

Other than that, you'll have to decide what role you want Poppi to fill in your party. Poppi's Role CPU can be changed to modify her role, which can include a Healer, Attack, or Tank role. You'll have to obviously choose which role fits best when taking your additional party member roles into account, but we'd recommend sticking Poppi on the role of the Tank in your party. The Evasion Role CPU Mods can give her a solid defence to both physical and Ether attacks, and if you manage to purchase a good weapon for her from a merchant, she can become quite the unstoppable force for your party.

Now that we're done with Poppiswap and Tiger Tiger, why not check out our other Xenoblade Chronicles 2 guides, including our guide to finding every Rare Blade in the game, as well as our complete Xenoblade combat guide.