Xenoblade is finally out!

[alienjesus]

How long did the game take you Zero? I'm 80 hours in and I've seen suggestions that I'm only just past the halfway point! I've been doing LOADS of sidequests though.

About that much (77 hours if I remember correctly), but I did like half of the quests I came by, almost none of the colony 6 rebuilding and no long chain quests which unlock if you get good affinity with a place if I remember correctly. Also I barely did any of the special events . It was just so long and I wanted to finish it cause I kept running into spoilers online and I didn't want someone to ruin the story for me.

Post in spoiler tags where you are and I'll tell you how close you are to the end.

I'm about to go to WARNING MEGA SPOILERS

Mechonis Field

[ZeroAX]

Well story wise you are about at 3/4th of the way (and it was exactly the part where I stopped trying to do at least 50% of the quests and just rushed towards the end), but if you want to do all the side quests 1/2th of the way is pushing it. More like 1/3rd of the way.

Though if you are doing all the quests I feel bad for that final boss. (EPIC fight btw....EPIC)

[alienjesus]

Well story wise you are about at 3/4th of the way (and it was exactly the part where I stopped trying to do at least 50% of the quests and just rushed towards the end), but if you want to do all the side quests 1/2th of the way is pushing it. More like 1/3rd of the way.

Though if you are doing all the quests I feel bad for that final boss. (EPIC fight btw....EPIC)

I'm at 5 star rating on 3 of the 5 areas and 4 star rating on 2. I've done over 330 sidequests. Surely there can't be that many more

[ZeroAX]

I'm at 5 star rating on 3 of the 5 areas and 4 star rating on 2. I've done over 330 sidequests. Surely there can't be that many more

, dude the game is like a small MMO. If you want to do everything it can take up to 200 hours according to some accounts.

Many quests unlock once you've farther built colony 6 (but some do go away, so do them before you continue the story if you want to do all of them).

[FerretGamer]

I'm only about 16 hours in and have barely scratched the surface.

Only at the Satorl Marsh, but heading back to Colony 6 for the rebuilding. I've done a crap load of quests though.

BTW, I believe there are 480 quests total in the game. Yea, the quests alone are like an entire RPG.

Zero, what level were you at for the final boss? I'm just curious since I want to make sure it is as painless as possible for me.

[ZeroAX]

I think something like 78 which was making it impossible cause the final boss is like level 80-82 (don't remember) but after leveling up by a couple of levels (the game lets you keep the xp you gained before dieing), by defeating the first form of the boss, I beat him easily.

BUT (not really a story spoiler but more of a tactic spoiler)

You must have a well equiped Melia cause she is very useful against the last boss of the pre to final dungeon (very hard boss fight without her), and cause she is very useful for the last boss. She can take out the extra monsters he spawns very fast. Yet I prefered to use Shulk (dpd) Rein (tank) and Sharla (healer) for the final boss

[alienjesus]

I think something like 78 which was making it impossible cause the final boss is like level 80-82 (don't remember) but after leveling up by a couple of levels (the game lets you keep the xp you gained before dieing), by defeating the first form of the boss, I beat him easily.

BUT (not really a story spoiler but more of a tactic spoiler)

You must have a well equiped Melia cause she is very useful against the last boss of the pre to final dungeon (very hard boss fight without her), and cause she is very useful for the last boss. She can take out the extra monsters he spawns very fast. Yet I prefered to use Shulk (dpd) Rein (tank) and Sharla (healer) for the final boss

Some tactics spoilers for me, plus some minor sidequests spoilers, you have been warned:

I generally use Melia, Riki and Sharla against any of the harder bosses. Melia is the only reliable damage dealer against 'red' difficulty enemies and can set up 2 earth spells for a good shield, riki can add lots of lasting damage, tank ok with his large hp and Hero Time and is a reliable back up healer. Sharla is there for obvious survivability reasons. It's worked very well thus far, I even almost took out a level 108 enemy at level 72 :p. I'm currently doing lots of sidequests involving monsters in the 90's in level, so I need a reliable team. Physical attackers unfortunately just constantly miss, lowering tension and making the situation even worse.

[ZeroAX]

^^^^

I always fail at breaking JRPGs . I am boring and played with a tank/dps/healer combo the entire game, and had trouble with bosses if they were a higher level than me.

[ninjainspandex]

I always wished they made a world of warcraft style game you could play offline on a console. I guess this and borderlands is the closest we will get to that.

[FerretGamer]

I devoted my entire play time yesterday to just doing more side quests and

rebuilding Colony 6.

At this rate (approx. 2-3 hrs a night), I will be done with this game in a month.
At least, I will have some breathing room before The Last Story comes out. Of course, I have Pandora's Tower on the way from the UK.

I think I need to give up on RPGs and just stick to Madden or something.