I looked it up on GameFAQs, and strangely most but not all achievements are carried over to a new game. Basically, the achievements are divided into "trials" and "records." The records are carried over, while the trials are reset. The trials include anything involving defeated unique monster counts, map exploration, most things involving affinity (including heart-to-hearts), completed quest counts, and slight spoiler the rebuilding of Colony 6.

Well, that's reasonable.

No wonder I was unable to find this monster. I was pretty sure I already defeated any special monsters in that area. It's that larger type of lizard monster, correct?

what are we talking about with 'a while to respawn'? is this some rough unit of IRL time, or can we just mess with the in-game clock? i've been doing my best to kill anything and everything i come across so far, including named creatures, so i hope i haven't killed anything i'm going to need to kill again soon, haha D:

LOL at tbd! I've been doing the same thing. I like to kill anything in my path so I might have to remember that monsters name so I don't put a hurting on him LOL

As for the spawning question (if serious ) I believe if you let a little game time go by like a couple of hours the monster will respawn! That how it will usually work. Unless its a mmo. Then those are real timed based!

@Tech: I realize that, but to be honest I haven't been paying attention to how often named monsters respawn. I just know that the ones i've killed so far haven't yet come back — that bunniv in Tephra Cave, at least... it's been gone for quite a while i think, lol. i should probably check up to see if any of the others i've offed have respawned yet D:

Spoiler!
Decided to take a break from the main story and rebuild Colony 6.

If you just said her name, I wouldn't call it a spoiler as its clear that she's not on your side when you first see her but now that you've called her a disciple, I won't name her. Anyway, I had loads of trouble with this boss too. She was easily the hardest boss in the game for me and as annoying and time consuming as it will be, you may need to level grind as I couldn't beat her until I was level 77 but you should try fighting her again after each level up as you may be able to beat her earlier as I've heard of some people that somehow beat her at level 74. As for how to fight her, you need to beat all the ether monsters she summons before fighting her as they significantly boost her defence. They can't actually be killed by you though so you have to beat them until they have a very small amount of health left and they will self-destruct soon afterwards which will damage you if you're close by. Ether attacks do much more damage to the creatures she summons than other attacks do so its best to have either Melia or Rikki on your team and Shulk's cyclone Monado art is also an effective attack to use against them. I beat her with Shulk, Sharla and Rikki which was also the team I beat the final boss with. Hope that helps.

Okay so, I have wanted this game for a while. I live in the UK so its been available for months.Trouble is my gaming time is severely limited. What I'm wondering is - is it possible to play this game in 30m-1hr sessions or would you get nothing done in that time?, how is saving handled?,can you save anytime?
The reason i ask is the last big game I played on Wii was MHTri and it was impossible to play for less than 2-3hrs what with all the farming ,gathering ,oh and killing big beasties going on.While I liked the game and wished I was 15 again to give it the time required ,I had to sell it.

The main game took me well over 100+ hours and with game+ despite letting you carry over your levels for the characters took that up to 250+ hours, so 1 hour sessions probably wouldn't be worth it, unless you maybe save it until you get a good bit of free time the game is unbelievably huge.

@Oldboy You won't normally get much done in half hour sessions but it would be possible in hour long sessions. It would be easier if you don't do much of the optional stuff and you won't be missing out on much by not doing many sidequests as for the most party they're quantity over quality you'd be missing out on a lot by not taking your time to explore the wonderfully designed game world and yes, you can save anytime.

Actually the sidequests where one of the games strong points for me and really added depth to the game, couldn't imagine skipping all that personally.

@oldboy Yes I think an hour at a time is possible but you will at times have to put more into it as the story and battle segments sometimes take that long. I would also recommend you have a good 4-5 hours at least at the start to get use to everything from the battle system to exploring colony 9! Otherwise you might hate it if you only give it an hour or two to start!

Ah cool ,thanks for the replies dudes. Well I think I'll buy a copy and have it sat there for when I have a free house for a few hours (pfft.. not often! ) to really get into it and then try to maybe get through it an hour at a time. I'm already playing Skyrim this way LOL. I often picture myself at 70,sat in a rocking chair still slowly plodding through this gens games backlog.
This is why I'm a big fan of Eshop and XBLA. Those nice quickfire games are perfect for me. I do love a good RPG though
Thanks for the help people

Same here my friend. I'm actually trying to complete every sidequest in the game. Although, they don't seem as enjoyable as the sidequests in Skyward Sword. They do give this RPG a much easier option for leveling up your characters and a good reason to. I can only handle so much grinding in any RPG, and then I'll be burned out for the remainder of the game.

I picture myself half demented in a care home at 70 as some carer pockets my pension and does who knows what else, my only hope is they are at least good looking.

LMAO Unfortunately probably closer to the truth ..............

Just seen a review of this on x-play. 4.5 out out of 5. That pretty much lines up with everyone on this game. Ill get a chance in the morning tomorrow to play this for a few hours. Can't wait.

Wow. It seems X-Play has to give an actual reveiw from time to time.

Wow just wow on the story so far!! Just finished the mechon battle in colony 9

Edit: And here i though getting a fever was a bad thing! Face palm! =-O