OK, so instead of popping over to Uxbridge to pick up The Last Story, I decided to pull out Xenoblade again, hopefully getting myself into the right mindset for another sprawling adventure RPG (which I'll probably pop out and get tomorrow).
A while back, I spent some time in a forum about the game, and found references to a "difficulty spike around level 50". Having played a bit further today - not much, mainly a bit of grinding to get myself back into the swing of Xenoblade's occasionally awkward battle controls ("I pressed 'A'... No, really, I pressed 'A'... For fuck's sake, I've pressed 'A' three fucking times now... Select that goddamn move!") - it seems to me that the difficulty spike only really occurs of you attempt to take the obvious - not to say obviously wrong - route into a particular location.
There are some giant enemies that claim to be Level 56, but they have serious defences, and some dangerously overpowered moves, and a tendency to use several in sequence. Thing is, they're easily avoided. The first one you encounter, there's a clear bypass route. The second is entirely optional - you'll only even find it if you fully explore the area rather than following the path set out by the story. In the next area, there's a further two of them, plus an optional encounter with a seriously overpowered enemy of a much higher level. The main entrance to a particular fortress is further protected by a trio of rather dangerously upgraded enemies... but the cutscene that plays when first one enters this area indicates a back door that appears unguarded. Make your way toward that entrance and, while you do find some guards, they're far more easily trounced than those protecting the bridge at the front. Then, when you get inside, things are challenging, but not repeatedly fatal (except when the controls don't respond when you want them to).
I suspect that you're not supposed to go up against the Level 56 behemoths until you're at least Level 70.
Thing is, there are obviously those players who choose to take the path of most resistance and succeed. That just blows my mind... I know I'm not the swiftest, most tactical thinker on these games. Most battles, I'm reduced to picking special moves as they recharge, and hoping for the best. More often than I care to relate, that doesn't exactly work out for me. There were a couple of times that, having seen one of my cohorts topple an enemy, I had the presence of mind to use a move that dazes a toppled enemy, but invariably I'd get wiped out when a much tougher enemy used one of its special attacks immediately after I'd wasted the Monado's power on an attack that wasn't quite as devastating as I'd hoped.
What I really need to do is figure out what the precognition icons mean... that may help me avoid getting utterly slaughtered.
...I think I shall give my folks a buzz tomorrow, and see about paying a visit. I know my mother is fixing lunches for her mother at the weekends, but they should be able to squeeze me in for an afternoon/evening... There was a movie on TV a couple of weeks back, based on one of the books I've recently read. I missed it, but they recorded it... and I'm very keen to see it.
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