52 xenoblade - sharla tells her story and joins the party

Dear Readers,

Sharla asked if we would listen to her story about Colony 6. She told us in dramatic voiced dialogue. The Mechon attacked, burned the place, killed and ate people. She fled along with others. Left behind were soldiers to fight, one of them named Gadolt, her husband-to-be.

Gadolt's name is distracting because the "l" isn't pronounced, so it's like "Gad-oh".

We told her Colony 9 got attacked in the same way as well.

We said we'd go to Colony 6 to find survivors as they didn't have any news on what happened to them.

Juju piped up and said he was coming too but Sharla corrected him. Reyn corrected him as well and Juju then said he'd go off to make dinner. Sharla kept saying to Reyn how much he reminded her of Gadolt.

I got a vision of Juju. In the vision he gets killed by the Masked Mechon and these black tentacle things coming out of the ground. I think it's like the part where I got stuck when I first played many years ago.

Suddenly we heard the buggy outside. Juju was driving off to Colony 6 himself! We rushed out but he was gone. Reyn asked if I had another vision and I said yes... and Juju was going to be killed unless we saved him.

Sharla insisted on coming with us, continuing to tell Reyn how much he was like Gadolt. He seemed overwhelmed with her going on about it!

We got a tutorial about buffs and debuffs. There's a general account about buff/debuff strategy you'd find in many RPGs, plus a list of some. Amusingly, there's a debuff called "bleed". That is certainly a realistic condition alright! Sharla also has a move called Cure Bullet, which grants debuff immunity and cures current debuffs, which sounds pretty good. Imagine recovering someone's health by shooting at them. Wow!

Another tutorial came up about her weapons and abilities in the form of text dialogue. She uses a rifle and her Talent Art is Cool Off. She says it's different to the rest of us because her talent gauge fills up when she uses it. When it maxes out, she can't use her Arts for a while and has to use the Cool Off move. She talks about Heal Bullet to heal minor injuries, Reyn talks about Shield Bullet that can be used at the start of battle and I suggest using the Cure Bullet when I get a vision about debuffs so we can change the future. Looking forward to seeing that strategy in action!

Another tutorial about crafting gems said the qualities will increase greatly with third party member support. I still haven't done any gem crafting yet...