Time Attack

Time Attack is a mode in Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition. Much like Challenge Battle Mode in Xenoblade Chronicles 2, it consists of a set of unique battles that can be fought in order to obtain special rewards.

Time Attack is accessed via portals in the world, the first of which is pointed out to the player as they continue on from Kneecap Hill at the end of Tephra Cave. As the story progresses, more challenges become available. There are ten challenges in total, one of which requires Future Connected to be completed.

Overview
Each challenge has two variants: Free, where the player uses whichever party they currently have, and Restricted, where the player is given a party to use. Free challenges have a recommended minimum level. Restricted challenges set and lock almost everything: party s, party order (including who the player must control),, gems, equipped arts (only their placement on the palette can be altered), art levels, enabled s, active skill branch, and level.

During challenge battles, no, , , or Affinity is gained, and s cannot be earned or progressed towards. progresses like normal. The effects of Casual Mode are disabled.

The timer keeps running even when the battlefield is frozen during chain attacks and visions. As a result, it is important to execute chain attacks quickly, and try and avoid situations where visions are more likely to occur.

Rank
Once a challenge is completed, the player is ranked in several categories, and given a number of points based on the rank. The threshold of each rank is specific to each challenge.

When all the categories are added together, the final rank is based on the total points. It can be seen that time is the most important category - while a bad time can be compensated by a high score in all other categories, the total rank cannot be worse than the time rank. As a result, any strategy based on whittling down the enemy slowly and building up score in the lesser categories will be less rewarding than one that aims to kill the enemy quickly. This also means that being greatly overlevelled in a Free challenge is likely an easy S rank.

The rank determines the amount of rewarded for completion. Some equipment pieces are also awarded for the first time the player reaches a certain rank.