Soul Voice

Soul Voices are the character voices in Xenoblade Chronicles X that act as an important game mechanic while working with other party members.

Throughout the fight, party members will occasionally give encouragements and commands to their teammates in battle. For example, Elma may say " Nice! Move in and do some damage!" When this happens, this is a cue for another player to use a melee art to do 50% more damage (or 100% more from behind the enemy).

These commands can be obeyed by using the indicated in the Soul Voice message box approximately  after the voice is called, granting extra effects to the Art used. Anyone except for the fighter that called out the Soul Voice is able to respond to the Soul Voice and activate its effects.

Non-player party members have a chance to automatically use Soul Voices when they do actions that trigger the Soul Voices. Surge Augments like Underdog Surge will increase the chance of the corresponding Soul Voice triggering.

When the player does actions that trigger Soul Voices, they will have to succeed at a Soul Challenge (except with the Binder voice). If they succeed, they will call out their Soul Voice. Otherwise, the voice will not activate.

Soul Challenge
When certain conditions are met during battle (dependent on the fighter), the player will have a chance to see a Soul Challenge appear on screen, showing a shrinking orange circle with a "B" button prompt within. This will happen even if no other party members are active.

When the player presses B while the hollow orange circle is within the white circle, the challenge will succeed with a Good rating, and when they press B while the orange circle overlaps the white circle, the challenge will succed with a Perfect rating. Otherwise, the Soul Challenge fails. The rate at which the orange circle shrinks is not consistent, so careful observation is required to ensure the challenge succeeds.
 * Perfect: The Soul Voice activates, and  is recovered,  between party members is increased, and the party's Morale Level increases, allowing Soul Voices to activate more often and for certain Arts to have extra effects.
 * Good: The Soul Voice activates, is recovered, and the party's Morale Level increases.
 * Failed: No Soul Voice activates.

The amount of health recovered depends on the Potential of the fighter, and the amount of TP gained depends on the Morale Level of the party.

A Soul Challenge prompt also appears when a Skell is wrecked. This prompt has different effects and does not activate a Soul Voice:
 * Perfect: The Skell is evacuated safely, and the Skell is repaired for free. Party members will automatically evacuate their Skell perfectly.
 * Good: The Skell is evacuated safely, but the Skell will lose 1 count of insurance. If the Skell has no insurance, repairs will cost Credits or a Salvage Ticket.
 * Failed: The Skell is evacuated, but the player's is reduced to 1 and the Skell will lose 1 count of insurance. If the Skell has no insurance, repairs will cost Credits or a Salvage Ticket.

There also exists a Soul Challenge when the player s an enemy: succeeding continues the bind (with Perfect ratings granting extra GP), and failing immediately ends the Bind.

Responding to Soul Voices
Each Soul Voice can be answered in one of six different ways to activate the effect. When a Soul Voice is answered, the caller and the responder will both recover and gain some affinity.

There is also an unused Heal icon in the game's files, but it is not used.

Soul Voice Triggers and Effects
Each party member has sixteen Soul Voices, each with their own effects. The first twelve Soul Voice triggers are the same, but each character will use a different effect from this table: A, B, or C. Cross is able to customize the Soul Voice effects for all of their Soul Voices, and can use any four of the custom Soul Voices as well.