I actually just had myself at 60, Lin at 57, Elma at 53, and L at 51 with there level 50 skells and Lin enjoying that +60 defense bonus.

Fair warning, be prepared to have to fight on foot because that is something that you'll have to do.

@Guillaume it's still not as bad as, Emo Boy Lao betraying you in the most telegraphed plot twist ever.

@Mr_Mustache It's certainly a lot longer than if you could just choose from a menu. It isn't that bad on its own, but the problem is that the game has many little issues like that, and sometimes they can pile on to make the game painful to play.

Oof the sidequests really start to matter in this game! I'm going a bit slow with the story chapters (I like a lot of the sidequests), and I've heard a particular decision early on relating to Baby Suids will play out quite significantly later. But recently I was doing the Helicopter mission and picked the red wire. That sure made me feel like a jerk when I got back.

@Guillaume

Thanks! I'll try it out laterrr.

@Cubed777

Oh man, that red wire. I don't even know HOW I ran into it, usually I just pretty much ignore what people are saying around town (if its not yellow), but someone was like "blah blah blah blue wire blah blah" and when it came time to pick, I went "....blue wire?" YIKES.

I, too, have invested WAY more time into sidequests and affinity quests than story mode, *high five*

@Mr_Mustache Did you look up and see that the helicopter crashes due to faulty repair work (red wire) and one of the people dies!? It even said that in the mission recap.

@Cubed777 Don't worry, it gets better from there.

@Cubed777

Haha, NO, I didn't see that. I don't look anything up. Actually..I looked up ONE thing..I was seeing if Miralife cards really existed. I guess there are a few sidequests attached to them, but we don't get to actually collect them ourselves. I was getting really stoked about trading with you guys!

When are you on, Cubed? What is your in-game name? I might actually be playing tonight sometime late. I'm Rob!

@Mr_Mustache

Um my in game name might be A.J. or Adam. My username/nnid is C77777. I might be on tonight! Depends on wife time I suppose.

I only half listen to what people are saying in side missions. So I'm sure my decisions have led to people's death, but I'm totally ignorant in general.

I haven't played this game since just after New Years - but I have an excuse... Once the house settles down, I'll be able to jump in and relax between baby feedings - but sleep is first right now...

I'm glad to see that people here are having a great time with the game though...

@Cubed777

Cool, make sure we get in the same squad and then maybe we can run some of those Squad Missions together. Still at work though right now, not sure when exactly I'll be home. Gotta get some Guitar Hero in, too. I've got several days in a row lined up, and the login bonuses accumulate exponentially!

@gojira

Ack, that sounds'a no good. Sorry, dude

@Smerd

Ready when you are, Smerdo my boy!

My copy should be here by Saturday. This might be too vague in such a complicated game, but what is one thing you wished you knew about when you first started?

BTW, I never played the original.

@cooliocuneo Hm, I'm not sure there's really anything like that in this game. I don't think there's anything you can miss, or do incorrectly, so to speak, but I also did go into the game pretty prepared.

I guess it would be nice if you knew what your character's voice sounded like in battle, since the samples don't show you that and you'll be hearing that a lot. Hope you picked one that isn't too annoying!

Just remember to read the manual! Trust me, makes it a lot easier than trying to figure things out.

@cooliocuneo

Don't just rush through the story. It's almost more of a fun exploration game than a traditional RPG. Rushing it defeats its purpose (where as with Xenoblade 1 I would say just go through the story straight through, probably. It was more linear.)

Enjoy.

@Mop it up if you Do a quest from someone named Yardley and then accept a request from him on the mission board after chapter 5 you'll be able to change your character's appearance and voice.

Oh, and here's what a full on level 60 skell looks like.

Be sure to add the =750 text after the opening 'img' tag when posting pics bigger than 750 pixels wide. This will prevent the clipping that occurred with your original post. It's fixed now though. - DrFinkelstein

Jargon, make it let me join your squad. It won't let me join your squad and now I'm sad... Screw it, who's this Ash guy, i'm joining him.

@pokepal148

Jargon may not have been online at all, as I mentioned before. I was trying to join Lou for like 15 minutes one day, and then he called up; "dude! It won't let me join your squad!" "....I'm not even online, it'll be a while before I get there." "......................Oh..."

It's funny how much time you can spend practically doing nothing in this game. I'm not really in the mood to do another story mission right now so I'm trying to do these gather and obtain side stuff. I needed a single drop from an enemy to do what I wanted to do. I probably had to fight twenty of them before they dropped what I wanted. And of course there's only one or two in an area so you have to wander off so they can respawn. Which leads me to other fights and discoveries. I probably spend 2+ hours just to get that one drop today.

After all this wandering and exploring (which leads to leveling up and such), I think it's time for a story mission and/or affinity quest.

@gojira

Gui mentioned it before, finder's fee to him; did you know that you can trade Squad Tickets (or whatever they're called) for like any Monster Drop in the game? I haven't found one yet that I couldn't get. I PREFER to go to the source of the stuff and get it "the hard way," but if a Lepyx is being an ass, and you need two sunstones, and you've fought about 20 of them and tried to get them how you thought you should get them..it might make more sense to simply go "buy" them from the Barracks console, and call it a day.