I finished the game after 260 hours and I have only the following left to say:

Fell from the sky

Lived a human lie

Met some weird Mira folks

Came in all forms of strokes

Tried to shoot L from cannon

Delivered pizza’s to those Ma-non

Freed some fighter kitty-cats

Poisoned some willing, armored technocrats

Stopped a cave and tree alien fight

Forgive me for that unholy union, right

Helped clone weird bugs

Gave greedy Nopons lot of hugs

Leveled and hearted up my entire crew

Brought evil their due

Vita smashed to bits by skells

In Elma a blue, hot chick dwells

I will give all aide

For i’m the XENOBLADE

Believe!

Lin was a likeable character. Also Tatsu. Dance of victory.

I finished at 91 hours, and while I enjoyed my time with it, I don't think I could have lasted much longer. I already had to take a few breaks by that point cos sometimes I just got sick of it.

I think that's as much a reflection on me as the game though; I find it hard to stay interested in one game for an extended length of time. I tend to play through something, not touch it for a year or so, then come back to it.

So, yesterday I got my Ares 90. O.M.G.

It feels so powerful, so amazing.

But also discovered all those amazing powerful guys that I needed to scout to farm the materials. Vita was a piece of cake.

Did also the global nemesis with other 3 guys, no skells. I don't know how I was able to survive all the time, and with overdrive, one after another. I don't have ghostwalker or ghost facti¡ory, but they helped me a lot to survive because I woulnd't be able to do it alone.

And now Elma has an Ares 70. Both of us are the most powerful beings in Mira.

Bringing this thread back from the dead to ask a question: When checking to equip a new weapon should I look for the weapon that gives me the best Total Melee Attack even if it drops my Melee Attack stat?

While I'm at it, what the hell does the Potential stat do?

Potential is the most important thing in the game. I'm not even sure how it works, but if you raise as much as you can, your attacks are going to be more lethal. 

I believe it is one if the things that used to be part of the Agility stat.  Iirc, it increases critical hit probability and your ability to hit enemies higher level than you.  For those who didn't know, in the original Agility was way OP since it effected your ability to dodge, land hits, land hits on enemies than higher than you, and the crit chance.  As well as other things iirc.

potential affects how much HP u will recover by responding the "shout" from ur teammates and also increase the affectiveness of TP arts (arts that use TP). If u have high potential, defence doesnt really matter as long as u respond to ur teammates as u will get lots of hp recovered. furthermore, TP arts like blossom dance (big sword) and other damage arts will caused huge amount of damage to the enemy. 

i dont think potential affect the original "agility" though.. the original "agility" has been replaced by evasion and accuracy.

Oh, doh!  My bad, got Potential mixed up with other stuff :P .

That sounds pretty difficult. 210hrs and still 90% exploration rate. Still farming on some augments like TP Gain and Melee Attack XX.