Remember last week when I said that if I hit level 30 this week I’d have a lot more to talk about? Well, I’ve got a funny story about that. But first, let’s talk some numbers. I’ve currently put in 40 hours and 3 minutes of play time in, my main character is level 30, and I’ve played through chapter 7 of the story. That’s just under five hours played this week, with two levels and no story progress. Which begs the question, why no story progress?

If you remember last week, I had said that the only requirement I hadn’t filled to start chapter 8 was to be level 30. After accomplishing this, I went to start the mission and was greeted by a new requirement. Now I also had to complete an affinity mission called The Matchmaker. I don’t know if the game just didn’t display this requirement or if there’s a way to see additional requirements that I’ve overlooked. But anyway, let’s go find that affinity mission!

Turns out, the mission requires that my affinity with the character Lao is at at least one heart. Outside of a couple instances where the game makes you use Lao, I’ve never had him in my party. Now after all the level grinding I had just finished doing, I’m now stuck grinding out affinity for Lao. I don’t think I’ve ever really touched on affinity. Basically, when I complete a mission or make certain choices while a character is in my party, a little heart will appear above their heads. This means that that character liked what you did and it adds to their “affinity” towards you. So, now I’m stuck doing more missions with Lao in my party before I can do the next story mission.

On the plus side, I’ve purchased a new skell and given my old one to Elma. Having two skells has made a huge difference in being able to get harder missions done. There’s been a tyrant mission that’s been giving me grief for hours. It’s against a level 25 monster that hangs out above a pond. The last time I tried it, I was level 28 and had one skell. I wasn’t even close to beating it. But now with two, I was able to beat with minimal effort. So that’s cool.

At the time of this writing, Lao is at about a half a heart of affinity towards me. My goal for the next week is to finish grinding out Lao’s affinity and complete chapter 8. It shouldn’t be too hard as getting the affinity is going way faster than grinding out the last two levels did. I just have to make sure I don’t get too distracted by other games this week. But that’s challenging when I’m also playing Pocket Card Jockey and Doom, both of which are awesome and I’m hoping to write about in the near future. See you here next week, where hopefully I’ll have more to report on.