I'm now ~45 hours in and having a grand ol' time. Every party member is now on Team Smeags and we're rockin' some Mechons.
I also finally started Gem Crafting (Because my mineral pocket finally filled up. )... and I guess I get how it works. It took me forever to start using the Blacksmith in Skyrim as well. I dunno, I'm just the type of gamer who much prefers to play the meat of the game instead of doing all these silly side-stuff to buff up characters. But hey, I guess it works.
Also: XenoBlade has one thing that annoys the heck outta me: Cut-scene>Run 30 meters>Cut-scene. They're always doing this to me! Just make it one big cut-scene and get it over with! Geeze!
One more thing: the scene where Shulk uses water from the spring to... um... yeah. Total cheese-fest.