I bet you thought I forgot to write one of these this week! Sorry it’s late, I ended up playing the game yesterday when I should have been writing. Plus, I had a really early shift at work this morning, so by the time I finished playing, it was time to go to bed. Anyway, let’s go over some numbers. I’m currently at 46 and a half hours of play time, my main character is level 34, and I’ve played through chapter 9 of the story. That means I played about three and a half hours, leveled up twice, and got through one chapter. Not too bad!

Starting off this week, I took a look at the prerequisites for chapter 9. I needed one data probe installed at the entrance to Sylvalum and I needed to complete the affinity quest called “Spy Games”. I actually had a data probe installed in Sylvalum weeks ago, so no problem there. However, Spy Games proved to be a lot more difficult.

Director General Chausson needs your group to infiltrate a Ganglion base in Oblivia to acquire some information that is apparently very important. Chausson has tried going through official channels to make this a proper Blades mission, but has been shot down because it’s too dangerous. So instead, he’s asking you personally. Elma is hesitant, but ends up agreeing.

Turns out it really was super dangerous. The base is being patrolled by enemies that are around level 55, so way to high for me to handle. Because of this, you have to treat this as a stealth mission. That’s kind of a cool idea, but the game is very clearly not built for this kind of gameplay. After about a million failed attempts, I made it to where I needed to go. But, as we were downloading the information, three level 30 ganglion soldiers run in to fight you. Level 30? Why are they sending in these clowns? But whatever, I easily beat them and the mission is complete.

I then immediately went to chapter 9. Lao is in trouble again. His team had been sent to find what might have been the Lifehold, but was attacked by the Ganglion. Only Lao survived, and he gives you the coordinates to take care of it yourself. When you arrive, there’s no sign of the Lifehold, and you get ambushed by that cat guy that stole the alien skell in the previous chapter and others of his race. These guys are the Wrothians, mercenaries who’s planet was taken from them by the Ganglion. Elma tells them that they shouldn’t be working for the Ganglion and actually makes it through to them. However, cat guy (the Wrothian prince Ga Jiarg) wants to fight you first to prove your worth or something.

They destroy me. Like, it isn’t even close. This was frustrating, so I ended up doing other side quests for a while. Most of these were pretty standard fare, but there were a couple pretty good ones. One of them tasked me with getting the measurements of some of the Ma-non so that underwear could be made for them. This is a weird game.

Eventually, I decided to pick up a healing item that brings my party back up to full health when used. This was enough to really make a difference in the fight against the Wrothians. After beating them, they hop into some skells and then allow you to do the same. I actually had no problems with this fight, beating it pretty easily in one try. Afterwards, Ga Jiarg tells you the location of the Ganglion stronghold and then sends a message to the Ganglion leader, Luxaar, saying that the Wrothians will no longer work for them.

Back at New LA, Lao looks like he’s going to be okay. However, Elma is beginning to have suspicions about him. Multiple times now, he hasn’t been present for fights with the Ganglion, and now he led our team into an obvious ambush. The plot thickens.

After the mission is over, I get a notification that I can now do a mission that unlocks flight for my skells. That’s pretty exciting, but I haven’t done it yet. That’s going to be one of my goals for this week. And yeah, that’s my week with Xenoblade Chronicles X. Now that I’m done with Doom, this game will be my main focus, so hopefully I’ll be able to play a lot more this week.