Alexlotl

If anything, I’m a bit over-levelled - Team OCTO are all around L29 heading into Chapter 2, and I haven’t even mopped up all the Chapter 1 sidequests yet. The recommended level for Tressa’s Chapter 2 is only 22, I’m worried it’ll be a cakewalk. Might be time to equip Cyrus’s reduced encounter rate skill, and start letting Caits escape rather than nobbling them.

Yup, that even makes Thief Cyrus’ cruddy sword attacks useful. They may only do 25HP damage, but they break a shield. I’m surprised you got to Chapter 2 with that misunderstanding! Some of the Ch 1 bosses must have taken ages.

All chapter 1s done! Only Therion's really dragged, and I think that was because I dropped Cyrus, and without a Scholar's multi-target elemental damage the random battles take ages. I liked Ha'anit's quest, looking forward to using her later, as part of team PATH. Now taking team OCTO around the map finding shrines and finishing some Chapter 1 side-quests. The enemy difficulty spike in the Chapter 2 areas is impressive - I'm not in mortal danger, but I am burning through the SP more quickly. Sub-job wise, I think I'm going... Tressa - Apothecary. She's already almost impossible to kill, and this lets her heal/bring other people back to life too, plus gives her more HP, axe attacks, and generally rounds out her jack-of-all-trades skillset. Not too much of a mismatch thematically, either (I couldn't make her a thief!) Cyrus - Thief. This makes him faster, harder to hit, and lets him steal SP to stay topped up. I also like it thematically - he's trying to catch a book thief, and studying the techniques of thievery to do so seems right up his street. Ophelia - Dancer. This gives her light and dark offensive magic, and buffs and heals, making her very useful. Thematically, I like to imagine she's either being corrupted by travelling in the big wide world, or something of her birth rather than her upbringing is coming out. Olberic - Hunter. He is the ultimate Fire Emblem character, with swords, spears, axes and bows. Plus he gets to dress like Conan. That gives me all 8 jobs, too, and a wide weapon spread for breaking. The job system is interesting, with a single pool of Job Points. It means that if I want Cyrus to have the Merchant's SP saver support skill, for example, he doesn't actually need to spend any time as a Merchant - he can just pile up JP in any old role, then switch briefly to Merchant to learn the support skill, then switch back to Thief. I think I like that? Seems unthematic, but also cuts out a hell of a lot of grinding.

Bang average in GW1, 65pts. Should probably have had a weaker bench in order to have Sterling instead of KDB. Dunk on the bench was vexing when Zouma got a -1. The only player I’m really annoyed by is Kean. I’d have sworn he’d played in pre-season and was ready to start, but apparently not. Also a bit worried about Bournemouth, who sounded rather crap on the radio - I have Fraser and King. The Villa match should be telling. Still, as long as you get at least 50pts a week you’re doing OK, so no disaster. Just shuffling the deckchairs this week though, and saving my free transfer.

One of the things the patches “improved”, sadly! Verticality indicators sound wonderful. Gormott is a nightmare for this, particularly the late game sub-quests in the underground river bit. Agate is an absolute beast of a blade for Rex, very good random find! After a plot event you’ll gain the ability to topple with Rex/Pyra - you can then switch to Agate and do ridiculous damage with her increased-damage-against-topple skill, as she also has passives which boost topple damage. She’s also good fun. Have you got the hang of chaining yet? Trigger your arts right when your final regular attack lands, and you’ll see a set of concentric circles appear, and the art power will be boosted. Learn one of the skills and you’ll be able to chain one art into another in the same way - and while I’m not sure they document it, you can chain blade switching in there too, then continue the chain the moment your new blade appears. It gets balletic after a while!

Beware of the main story quest where you have to find someone’s shipyard, the quest marker is completely useless in terms of finding your way there. Don’t feel bad about resorting to a YouTube vid if necessary, it’s notorious.

Better than XC1 for my money, a comfortable 9/10. It’s not grindy unless you want 100% of the blades - but if you’re happy to make the most of the blades you naturally acquire along the way, either through plot or random draw (and they’re all good), then there’s no grind to speak of*. * Except for Ursula’s blade quests, which can do one. The combat system is fantastic, accessible on the surface but with loads of depth. Getting up to a full burst is such a satisfying culmination of planning, I can’t think of anything else like it in a real-time game. If it helps calibrate, I hated XCX, which was just a big empty world full of generic empty people. This world really feels alive, with distinct personalities between titans, and the choice to use different UK regional accents for each titan’s inhabitants in the localisation was genius. Like XC1 it also has a likeable main character with straightforward motivations, a trick that’s surprisingly hard to pull off. It loses a few points for being a little lary at times, but in a way it’s not as bad as most of Sharla & Seven’s outfits in XC1, and if a random blade is a bit too pervy for you, you can just not use them.

Perhaps he can go and train with the Anderlecht U21s. It is just me who was amazed Anderlecht were willing to let Lukaku do that? I'd imagine the insurance repercussions if he got injured could have been huge.

Nice! I'll wait for the My Life In Gaming review, then may pounce.

Aw, shit. So happy to see him back with Purple Mountains, although that happiness was tempered by the hints that the record was largely the result of his stable, dormant life falling apart completely.

Chelsea have some policy where they won’t give players over 30 contracts of more than 1 year, from memory. Luiz’s contract is up at the end of the season, so he probably fancies a bit more security. EDIT: Oh, hang on, Chelsea broke that policy and gave him a new 2 year deal in May. Dunno, then.

Still enjoying this one - 6/8 chapter ones done now, only Therion and Ha'anit to go. I know some people have complained about the lack of overarching big bad etc, but it's actually quite nice to have played six opening chapters and for none of them to have featured any of the following: Burning village Legendary Sword Amnesia Chosen One myth Evil Empire 1000 years ago... The stories seem much more small and personal, which I like. It's a functioning world with good people and bad people in it. The insight that Analyze/Inquire gives you into everyday village NPCs is great, and adds heaps of colour to the game - it reminds me of scanning things in Metroid Prime. I think once the Chapter 1s are done, I'll take team OCTO all the way, then switch to team PATH. I think the OCTO characters are definitely easier to play as, at least prior to getting secondary jobs - healing is a pain wiithout a Cleric, elemental damage is a pain without a Scholar, and thanks to Tressa I have absolutely buckets of money (love Collecting from bosses!). The PATH characters seem more nuanced and harder to get to grips with, but I'm guessing secondary jobs will make them easier to handle. Met two Caits so far and managed to nobble them both thanks to hints I read here. The ridiculous level-up fest that follows is great. Just reached the point where my characters are unlocking their second support skills, which seem to be ridiculously powerful (e.g. massive boosts to Atk, Elem Atk, SP, etc).

The thing with all the Bluetooth adaptors is that if I have to carry one in my travel case to use the Switch with my airpods, then I may as well pay nothing and just take an old set of wired Apple earbuds solely for use with the Switch. They’re about the same size/weight as a Bluetooth adaptor, and as you’re not playing the Switch while doing other things (e.g. walking, doing dishes), the wire isn’t much of a disadvantage.

Heaton at Villa, Pope at Burnley or Ryan at Brighton. Probably in that order, IMO. Keep an eye on the transfer market - if Leicester buy Dunk to replace Maguire, Brighton's defence gets a lot less attractive. If they buy Tarkowski, then Gibson looks nailed in the Clarets' defence at £4m, so if you don't like defensive double-ups (I don't) that makes Pope less attractive.

Dyche’s been giving Gibson quite a lot of minutes in pre-season, and they paid a pretty penny for him, so I think they’re well prepared for this. As someone with no skin in this game, I hope Tarkowski goes to Leics so we get a £4m Burnley CB in FPL.