The first planet we happen upon is Jarilo-VI, a world in the grip of an eternal freeze. The people there haven’t been visited by anyone from beyond their own planet in centuries so when our crew first arrives, they’re met with skepticism, but I don’t think it’s very spoilery to say that things turn out for the better for everyone involved…most everyone involved.

I had originally started to recount the entire journey of the Trailblazers on Jarilo, but then I remembered that I had forgotten key elements about the whole thing and realized that half a story wasn’t much of a story at all, so I’ll keep this post brief.

I had actually plowed through about 90% of the planet’s quest offerings and was on the path towards the final confrontation when I mentioned in Discord that I was approaching burn-out. I have been playing HSR pretty exclusively which for me is both something that happens and something that I know I should avoid because of this exact feeling. Last night, I was running down a corridor and everywhere I turned there were more enemies to fight. The night prior, I had attempted the “simulated universe level 2” which is a progressive battle system that I think I mentioned in my previous post; level 2 features 13 areas, some of which are combat related. One fight was against a pretty powerful crystalline centaur, but the final fight was against a duo of battle robots that had to be fought twice in the same encounter. By the time I got around to the second stage of this battle, I had lost 2 members and was pretty much tired of the whole ordeal. This, plus the remaining story content I had to do on Jarilo, suddenly made me not want to even bother. I had little other content aside from busy-work to do that could net me the materials I needed to level up the 20 or so systems that comprise advancement in this game, so things were looking a little bleak.

Last night while sitting on the couch while my wife was watching TV, I fired up the game on my phone anyway with the intention of seeing exactly how much more content I had to go through before I could move on to the next chapter. It turned out that there wasn’t a lot. I had to fight a mini-boss (whose abilities include a whole lot of lock-down effects that prevent the team from using basic, advanced, and ultimate attacks), the echo of a main character, and then the main character herself.

Thing is, none of them were particularly difficult. I mean yes, they were tough fights, but unlike my encounter with SimU2, these three battles were set up very well, and my team composition of The Trailblazer (physical), Hook (fire), Serval (lightning), and Natasha (physical, but also the healer), along with some warning from the Discord Crew that allowed me to pre-game with some consumables, made for a long fight, but not a particularly difficult fight in all cases. Plus, the final fight featured a pretty action-packed cut-scene which ultimately benefited The Trailblazer (she can now switch focuses between physical and fire), and also reminded me that sometimes, anime can really kick-ass.

This was followed by about a half-hour of victory laps as everyone on the planet wanted a word with the team, or whom the team wanted to say goodbye to. Things are looking good for Jarilo-VI, and I’ll be back eventually as I have some quest cleanup to do down there, but for now, I’m back on the Astral Express and ready to move on to the next destination.