Playing Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition. Not much new here, doing some side content while waiting for FrontNav minerals to give me what I need. Did some side quests, also finally found the dog, so was able to do tons of heart-to-heart.

Finally got the required mineral last night and went to start Chapter 7, when I realised I haven't surveyed Oblivia enough! facepalm I remember checking it before and was sure I meet the required number, so I either it read the requriement wrong or my survey percentage wrong.

Anyways, with Skell, it shouldn't take too long to do it. Also, got all my characters to level 30, so can buy Skells for them. Haven't done that yet though, will do it soon.

The Surge time was pretty productive, completed the third area, and got some good upgrades, then went back to second area (that's how the game flows), and now am stuck at the boss.

I am bit confused about this boss. It has two phases, I have gotten down first one now, can do it without losing much health, or sometimes, any health. The second phase has 4 robo-arms on the side walls, which keep attacking you when you are attacking the mail pillar / boss. You can destroy those 4 arms, but if kill the boss without destroying the arms, you get a very good weapon.

So, that's where I am stuck, I want to kill the boss without destroying those arms, to get that weapons, but I am not sure if I am good enough to keep track of 5 different things and attack the boss while dodging them. Going to try a few more times, if it didn't work out, will just destroy the arms.

Also got Street Fighter 6

I am more of a casual fighting game player, but still enjoy them every now and then, with a soft spot for Street Fighter and Soulcalibur games. So, just got it to play few rounds every now and then. Thinking about seeing if I can get anywhere in ranked, but not too concerned about it.

Ilandar mentioned PlanetSide 2 last week, and after looking it up, I wanted to give it a try. Plan to check it out over the weekend. I am not much of a MMO fan, so not sure how much I will actually play, but want to take a look.

What about all of you? What have you been playing and/or plan to play?

What’s the point of classes once you get the skell though?

Fighting on-foot can be lot stronger than using Skells if you take the time to optimize for it, in particular late game. And there's some downright broken stuff you can only do on-foot like infinite Overdrive or being 100% invincible by abusing Ghost Walker.

After I got the Flight Module I used Enel's guide to quickly max classes so I could test differerent setups, then took some hints from his Long Sword and Dual Guns guide to tweak my character. I did not grind for equipment, just used what I had in my inventory with a better weapon/arte/skill combo, but the result was absurd, I was soloing enemies 20 levels higher and killing stuff faster than Level 30-50 Skells. This is what I used to beat most of the late-game bosses.

Only after unlocking the Ares 90 that I moved back to killing bigger stuff with Skells. From the videos I've seen you can still outdamage it on-foot but it would take quite a bit of effort grinding for the best gear and so on, and given how easily I'm killing everything now it would be probably be overkill.

The general ideal is that Skells are easier to optimize and get high damage numbers, and are more than sufficient to get through the main game, but if you want to really min-max you can destroy things even faster on-foot.

Also, one more thing to know: The Galactic Knight class has skills that buff Skells. So if you prefer to stick to Skell combat this may be a good class to unlock.

Tempered monsters are basically stronger versions of regular monsters. Arch Tempered is an even bigger leap, reserved for a select few as special events.

I played a lot of Octopath Traveler Champions of the Continent this weekend. I was just on a roll with the new character Shana’s SP stock ability. It’s such a relief to not have to worry about resources between battles!

I got to play more Xenoblade Chronicles X with my wife this weekend. She doesn’t play, but she watches while knitting. When voice acting starts up, she's listening for the story. We played this way with the Wii U, as well, but that was a decade and another house ago.

I got to play Clank: Catacombs with my oldest and his friend. I was crushed, even though I managed to escape. Just didn’t grab enough goodies in the depths!

We also played 7 Wonders and I was soundly defeated again. I can’t believe that game is nearly 20 years old!

I also lost in Smash Brothers. The only success I felt this weekend was taking my family to the batting cages. My oldest suggested it for his birthday. It’s out-of-character, but lots of fun!

Playing Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition. Not much new here, doing some side content while waiting for FrontNav minerals to give me what I need. Did some side quests, also finally found the dog, so was able to do tons of heart-to-heart.

Finally got the required mineral last night and went to start Chapter 7, when I realised I haven't surveyed Oblivia enough! facepalm I remember checking it before and was sure I meet the required number, so I either it read the requriement wrong or my survey percentage wrong.

Anyways, with Skell, it shouldn't take too long to do it. Also, got all my characters to level 30, so can buy Skells for them. Haven't done that yet though, will do it soon.

The Surge time was pretty productive, completed the third area, and got some good upgrades, then went back to second area (that's how the game flows), and now am stuck at the boss.

I am bit confused about this boss. It has two phases, I have gotten down first one now, can do it without losing much health, or sometimes, any health. The second phase has 4 robo-arms on the side walls, which keep attacking you when you are attacking the mail pillar / boss. You can destroy those 4 arms, but if kill the boss without destroying the arms, you get a very good weapon.

So, that's where I am stuck, I want to kill the boss without destroying those arms, to get that weapons, but I am not sure if I am good enough to keep track of 5 different things and attack the boss while dodging them. Going to try a few more times, if it didn't work out, will just destroy the arms.

Also got Street Fighter 6

I am more of a casual fighting game player, but still enjoy them every now and then, with a soft spot for Street Fighter and Soulcalibur games. So, just got it to play few rounds every now and then. Thinking about seeing if I can get anywhere in ranked, but not too concerned about it.

Ilandar mentioned PlanetSide 2 last week, and after looking it up, I wanted to give it a try. Plan to check it out over the weekend. I am not much of a MMO fan, so not sure how much I will actually play, but want to take a look.

What about all of you? What have you been playing and/or plan to play?

Not much on the Switch at the moment - I finished Mario Wonder the other week (excellent game) and I think I'm near the end of Steamworld Quest. So I'm flicking between that and Picross S4 when I get time.

On PS5 I've borrowed a copy of FF7 Rebirth off a friend which I look forward to starting later! I was also gifted A Short Hike on Steam so maybe I'll give that a go

Just started Metroid Prime. I was tempted to wait and see if you can play it in its docked mode while handheld with switch 2, but alas I saw it for $30 and had to grab it.

Docked mode while handheld? What magic is this?

There are some discussions online about whether or not the Switch 2 will support switch 1 games in their docked profile but in handheld mode. For example, Metroid Prime runs on 1080p60 docked and 720p60 in handheld on Switch 1. On Switch 2, people are wondering if in handheld Metroid Prime could run in 1080p60 or it will be limited to 720p60.

Nintendo has not confirmed this one way or another yet. It may even be the case that in handheld the S2 would upscale the 720p image to 1080p instead of running it in 1080p native. We will have to wait and see how it all works

Ah, like how PS5 Pro can basically have PS5's Graphics and Performance mode at same time.

Yeah, that would be pretty neat. I try to stay away from rumours and leaks, so haven't heard anything about it. Keeping the fingers crossed.