It truly was this mode that convinced me to stream the whole series again.
Chapter Seven is where I left off with my replay, and having so much fun with the minigame here is why I decided to actually stream it. If not for that, I was just going to do Xenoblade 2 this year and Future Connected next year. (The plan was to do “chronological order” games of the series, one per year, until I’d redone all of them, save for Torna because there’s next to no optional parts of that game.) Having another Xenoblade game potentially releasing next year was another part of that decision, of course!
If not for the fact that I’m getting all of the skill branches for this playthrough, it would be pretty fast, I think. I still don’t like the speedrun strat of getting that OP weapon for Reyn, but at least travel would be a lot faster this round! And speaking of Reyn, we can thank him for the insane amount of questing to be done. Seriously, leave out Reyn and Sharla (the two that depend on Colony 6) and skill branches are a lot easier to get. Yes, Shulk needs 4.5 stars in Colony 9, but Sharla ties that in Colony 6 and also needs levels 4 & 5 with three of the four categories of rebuilding. And being the first area, Colony 9 has some of the fastest quests. We’re starting to reach areas with much more involved quests, and it’s only going to get tougher from here.