I think I'm about 80 hours in, and now I'm stuck on the boss Jonny talked about so much recently on RFN episode 296. I think I realize what to do though: Disciple Lorithia is surrounded by nebula type enemies, so I need to bring in my heavy ether attack party members, and I'm guessing that would be Melia, Sharla, and perhaps Riki? Even Shulk's Monado Armor hasn't been too helpful for this particular battle. My party is about level 75 right now.

Oh, and I need to really understand how Melia's attacks work, its a bit confusing how to use her effectively when controlling her. I should probably read more about it in the tutorial section, oops!

Just found a US copy of the game and purchased it. Kind of stopped playing my EU copy a few months ago, so in time I'll start up. Likely wait until the WIiU but now I don't need to worry about keeping the Wii around.

40-something hours in and I am currently trying to open some gates to the mighty Prison Island location.

I had made it to one of the gates previously but there were just tons and tons of monsters. I made it to the top and then just jumped back down because the monsters kept chasing me. Now I'm trying to literally gauntlet myself up to the gate but I am being whipped each time (though less and less as the game is designed). Still, I'm surprised that being a level 41 at this point I'm still having a hard time with the enemies in this section. When entering this new location I'm headed to, what levels were some of you all? Are the areas around these gates the best place to grind/fight to gain experience? And at this point in the game, which is your preferred character set? I've been dancing around with a ton of different mixes but I think right now I have Reyn, Melia, Riki. Why? I don't know...

@DrFinkelstein

I was stuck on that part as well. I can't remember who I used to finally finish that section. One problem I was having was not necessarily being under-leveled but my battle tactics. Since there are large numbers of enemies, trying to take them on all at once is a bad idea since they will overwhelm you by sheer numbers. Have you been using the Lure command before a battle? Target the enemy closest to you, and instead of selecting the big red Battle icon to start the fight, scroll down to the Lure command (I think it's the purple arrow icon) and see if you can Lure one or two enemies away from the pack to battle relatively safely. Note that when you're in close quarters with a lot of enemies (like at the top of some of the gates) you still end up having to fight all the enemies at once.

Also, I believe the enemies giving you problems are those Lizalfos-looking dudes (Kromars). One annoying tactic they use is 'Arts Seal' where your party members are no longer able to use arts during battle (only auto-attacks). See if you have any gems with Arts Seal Resist. If you haven't obtained it already, the mobile furnace is an important tool to have at this point so you don't have to warp back to Colony 9 every time you want to forge new gems.

Some of the gates are easier than others, so if you can't simply get past one area, try another. And of course, remember that your option besides grinding through battles is doing side quests and re-building Colony 6.

@DrFinkelstein

That's where I stopped playing. I'd been trying to get to that damn island for twenty hours, and after completing all of the little side-arcs that got in my way, I FINALLY get to go... except, nope, gotta open the gates first.

I couldn't take it anymore.

@roykoopa64 Here's way more info that you probably wanted (because you've probably figured out by now).

Melia confused me for a while, too, because she works so differently than the boys. I tend to control her a lot, so she can do all that damage, but so I can control the aggro on her. Here's what I've figured out.
1 - She can summon up to three elements. They generally buff all three party members. This is in an area around her, so she can summon the element while standing back, then move forward, and others will get the buff until she moves out of range again.
2 - She can manifest summoned elements. This is generally an attack on the enemy. This goes in order from most recent to oldest. So if you summon aqua then earth, then manifest, she'll manifest earth. The buff from earth (I believe it's phys defense up) disappears because the element was used up, and the enemy gets attacked. Unlike most other characters, you can use the central button while the gauge isn't full. Manifests can do a lot of damage, so when she's on autopilot, she tends to stand around not doing much because she really can't take the aggro. She's mostly standing there to share her buffs and the occasional mediocre heal.
3 - The gauge in the middle goes up as she manifests; it does not go up when she auto-attacks. When it's full, she goes into Elemental Burst. That means the next manifest will be extra-powerful.

I tend to use aqua first, and leave it summoned without manifesting it. That buff gives everyone a little bit of HP restoration. I also use lightning a lot, because I put the skill levels into it and have some lightning-enhancing gems on her. I use fire a bit, too, but that can be a problem because it attacks all the enemies (which is good) and the ones that aren't getting hit by other characters start swarming her (which is bad). She also has an ability that lets her re-summon the element most recently summoned. This is good for when I want to keep hitting the enemy with lightning and don't want to wait for the cool-off. After a while you get a feel for the gauge and can make sure you've got a nice element ready for that burst.

Huh..so that's how Melia works.

I think I might use her if I continue my second run.

Yeah, Melia was my main throughout the entire game once she joined the group.

With proper element summoning, she was an absolute beast I was able to take on enemies far higher leveled than me by having 2 Earths or 2 Ices stacked as the base (Earth boosts physical defense and Ice boosts Ether defense).

I haven't put enough skill levels into Earth.

So I am not able to defeat this last boss of the game: Zanza's second form! Arrgggg! He's constantly attacking with these 1 hit kills. My party members are level 79, 80 for the most part. I've tried all my best party combinations (controlling Melia with Riki and Sharla, or controlling Shulk and using his Monado shield).

Among the chaos of the fight it's hard to see when his guardians come in to help. The worst part is when I'm trying to kill one of his guardians and I can't even hit it. I'm not sure why that happens, so I target another one of them and manage to defeat that one easier. But the few times I managed to defeat all the guardians, I still can't defeat Zanza.

I just don't seem powerful enough. I hate to have to re-do this entire final sequence if I end up having to go back and grind some more and/ or do more quests. Sooooo cloooooose, and I want to end it now.

@VickiL

Thanks, that's very useful! Melia is very powerful once you understand these tactics.

EDIT: YEESSS. Game finished! At long last.

Finally beat the game after 98 hours. Some thoughts:

A fantastic RPG that innovates the genre in so many ways yet still has some drawbacks, namely in a quest that becomes too long for its own good.

The ending was ok, but after the long quest and well crafted story, perhaps I was expecting a bit more to wrapping up the story and the characters. I think FF VI has spoiled me in regards to RPG endings, haha. Still, it was cool to know the truth about the Monado and the creation of the world in which Bionis and Mechonis dwelled in.

I loved the concept of having such a long list of optional side quests that can easily fill in to help build up exp pts and money, among other benefits. However, a lot of the quests are simply too annoying to pull off in a timely fashion. It's so frustrating when your quest involves meeting so-and-so person when it's difficult to remember where that person appears and at what time (the in-game affinity chart helps alleviate this problem a little, but that solution requires navigating a large and unorganized map of NPC icons). Yeah, you can change the in-game clock easily enough, but it's still quite cumbersome searching large areas. Just as annoying are quests that require some rare item drop and require you to grind certain enemies for extended periods of time in the hope of picking one up. Yes, sometimes you will happen to pick up the items you need as you adventure along anyway, but later in the game when your inventory fills up and you're forced to discard some without knowing with certainty which ones may be needed further own the line. There are simply way too many items in the game! (And for some reason, the game always takes too many seconds to load up every time you go in to access your menus and inventory, which adds up to a lot of time when you're constantly picking up new weapons and armors from enemy drops).

But getting back to what makes this game fantastic: large worlds that you are rewarded for exploring. The game makes it so easy to warp between areas very quickly. You have auto-recover of HP after every battle. The battle system is fairly engaging and requires a good deal of strategy depending on the enemies you're facing.

I loved the story from start to finish. I actually like the voice acting in this game, contrary to a lot of people's opinions otherwise.

I finally went back and finished Disciple Lorithia, using Melia, Sharla and Reyn of all people and am making my way through Prison Island. I hope to finish by the end of the month; it's hard to find time for console gaming this summer.

Done! Big spoilers ahead. I thought the ending wrap-up was adequate. Some people on the interwebs were saying how surprising the ending was, but I wasn't that surprised. Maybe I'm unique, but during the opening sequence, I thought, "Either those big guys destroyed the normal existence and created this weird world, or we destroy this by the end and create something a bit more normal." Turns out both were correct, in a way (maybe because my thoughts were vague), but I did not see all the stuff with Zanza being a human being who destroyed the world and became a god, along with his co-scientist, coming at all. I also didn't expect Shulk to take over, but I should have after he willed himself into existence, so that's my bad.

I did think it was funny when I went ahead to see what the new game plus would look like and then there was Dunban, standing around in his knickers, one-hit killing all the early enemies during the prologue.

@VickiL

Cool, congrats! If you want to check it out, I've set up a separate thread where people who have finished the game can discuss the game (and story, in particular) in detail without the need of spoiler tags.

Rocco said on the Mega64 podcast that he just beat Xenoblade and that it was a 10/10 Game of the Year with crazy amazing plot twists up until the very end. Ugh, I kind of want to go back to it.

I really didn't find much in the way of surprises in the story, you can see most "twists" coming a mile away. But to be fair, I tend to overthink things so perhaps most people won't take the time to predict what's coming next.

Well, now that I've gone back to and beaten the previously-too-small-to-view-on-my-old-TV-but-now-I-can-see-it-on-my-new-one game Rayman Origins (and greatly enjoyed it), it's time to give Xenoblade a fair shot!

Now with text that's actually legible!

I'm about 8 hours in now, having just entered a new large area the field on the Bionis' leg/knee, and am much more impressed with the game this time around. The exploration is great fun, the streamlined approach to everything minimizes dull moments, and the battle system is makin' all kinds of sense! Even the story, which I was initially unimpressed by, really picked up once the town got attacked and the creators made a really gutsy decision by killing off a character who I thought was in it for the long haul. I honestly expected the grizzled veteran to meet his end there, not the love interest! Looking forward to playing more between bouts of work.

@TriforceBun I remember that place. I really liked the music there. It's got to be a decent song if you expect a person to listen to it for hours on end. I liked how the battle system kind of scaled up gradually, since it wasn't like anything I'd played before.

Can you tell me about how far I'm in / how many hours I have left since for main story? I played about 20 hrs but with side quests its hard to gauge how far in I am.

I just defeating Xord on the elevator lift. I encountered Metalface and Dunban just joined up with the party. I just started a new area on the hip of the Bionis