The sad thing is that the game doesn't really even try to mask the grinding. There are several quest givers who give you 4-5 different "slay X monsters or collect X items" straight up.Marshall Honorof said:
One of my friends also played Xenoblade. He didn't really bother to pick up the side quests etc. since he found them tiresome, but that left him underleveled for most boss encounters which meant that he had to go back and do those sidequests to level up enough for the encounter.
I am, on the other hand, in a situation where I try to do most sidequests that don't require me to go too much out of my way (even if it's quite a chore)... and I am overleveled in every boss encounter, smacking the monster around without no real danger.
I really hope this isn't the same as "Final Fantasy XIII will get better 30 hours into the game". I will most likely keep playing Xenoblade a while more but I don't see anything changing unless the battle encounter design changes drastically, they introduce more interesting combat mechanics or the story will make a turnaround.
To avoid completely bashing the game, I have to say that the world is cool, in terms that the people are living on a dead god.
