Xenoblade Chronicles 2: 100 hours

I abandoned the story some 30 hours ago, somewhere at the beginning of chapter 8; and since then, I've been doing nothing but sidequests. It's nearly ridiculous how all the secondary stories about Blades and NPCs are ten times more engrossing and touching than the main story; but at least, that makes for really good sidequesting. I just love seeing regions develop and evolve, discovering my Blades' backstories and personalities through exclusive Blade quests and checking every now and then on NPCs I helped back in the early stages of the game. The main story might be the game's backbone, but the sidequests and secondary stories are undeniably the delicious, juicy meat around that backbone.

My plan for the time being is to grind my Rare Blades and fill up their affinity charts as much as possible. I managed to rack up a pretty decent roster, with only seven Rare Blades still eluding me. I'll be glad if they join the fray before I'm done with the game, but I certainly won't go out of my way to secure them — not with the RNG being as unfair and screwed as it is in XC2. I already have enough to do with my current roster, trust me. I really love the variety of requirements for the Rare Blades' affinity charts: from grinding Merch Missions to killing exclusive monsters by the truckload (hello Zenobia), without forgetting collecting, quests and heart-to-hearts, there's enough variety there to ensure that you'll never get bored grinding your Rares.

And since I'm on the Rare Blade subject, I have to admit that most of the designs disappoint me. A couple of them are really original and interesting, granted; but for the most part, they're really vanilla and too anime-ish for my taste. Also, why are there so many female Rare Blades, why do male Rare Blades look more often than not like they're not male, and why is Dromarch the only animal Rare Blade? That lack of variety really hurts the Rare Blades roster; it's hard to be enthusiastic about discovering a new Rare when you're 95% sure it's gonna be yet another luridly-clad female. Also, a piece of my soul died when I read aloud the name of Poppi's third form for the first time and realized the cheesy, corny, lousy pun lurking there. Oh, well. That's what you get when you play RPGs marketed towards gamers young enough to be your own children, I guess.

Thanks to all that questing, my party is massively overleveled, with everybody lounging now in the mid-80s. That sure helps tremendously for sidequests, since most bosses and rares monsters involved in said sidequests can only boast a puny level 50-60. Easy-peasy! If I had to nitpick though, I'd said that it pisses me off to see Rex stall behind and level-up slower than the rest of the crew. Is he the bloody hero or not? Is it because he's the youngest here? Oh well, nevermind; I don't care that much anyway, since I've been playing with Morag for the last 40 hours. Oh, how I wish she could have been the hero of that sorry story instead of virgin boy Rex. I'm gonna hang onto her as long as I can, let me tell you that; and if I can get away with slaughtering the last boss with her, then I'll sure as heck do just that. But hey, not now! I still have plenty of quests to polish off, and I'll get back to the grind as soon as I finish that post. Thanks for reading, and be my guest anytime!