The Xenoblade Chronicles Series Thread: Definitive Edition (All Spoilers in Tags)

[Super_Boom]

Asriel said:
How long is Torna? I'm a couple of hours in. Planning on doing as many side-quests as I find.

I'm thinking next year I might try to New Game Plus XBC2 so I can play the rest of the expansion pass content - but also do the game in the order Tetsuya Takahashi recommended; that is, do the first 7 chapters of the main game, then do Torna, then do the final chapters of the main game (!). I'll also try to wrap up all the side-quests in the main game, which I didn't in my first (~85 hour) playthrough earlier this year.

I took 32 hours to get everything I cared about, which basically boiled down to all requirements to get Mythra to S rank, or all side quests and Unique Monsters. I still have one Community member that isn't complete, which would take another 3 hours when I finally get back to it, so 35-40 hours is probably a reasonable 100% time (unless you go beyond and fill in affinity charts).

I finished the story early just to get out of spoiler territory, and I was at about 25 hours at that point. 

NoirSon said:
I haven't finished but I think I am at the end section having just passed community level 4. I did all the side content I could so the first gate for that literally just went by without issue. At this point I am just under 25 hours but I have been trying to grind because before I go fight Malls I am trying to kill this one gold deer thing that has been kicking my butt since I found it.

That boss sucked. I was way overleveled, and it still took me 4 or 5 tries. I eventually just tried to use Chain Attack early, when he still had 60% of his health left. You'll probably only use 6 orbs before the Chain Max thing triggers, but just get as many orbs as possible and it should work.