Quote:
Originally Posted by JuntMonkey
One thing I've hated about JRPGs since approximately the SNES era has been the difficulty curve. In the NES days there was constant grinding required, which is fine for what it was. With SNES and beyond, the games (and I'm mostly talking about FF, but plenty of one-shots as well) had the difficulty just right to allow steady progress without ever really having to grind. But then all of a sudden, the final boss was extremely difficult if you didn't have pumped up characters. Smooth steady easy progress, and then a brick wall at the end.
FF8 was particularly egregious. If you used Guardian Forces (summons) the whole game you'd find yourself in a world of hurt, as they are taken away from you for the final dungeon and aren't that relevant when you get them back. There was a "proper" way to play which was more complex, and you were never really given an indication that you should be playing that way, since GFs did all you needed. Once I reached the final dungeon I wound up looking at strategy guides and spent about 20 hours going back and grinding to get things right. Ultimately I had fun with it, but it's still bad game design.
FF7's ending I also thought was difficult. People tend to scoff at it because of Knights of the Round, which does make life easy. However, getting KotR was a massive hassle, and I doubt very many people got it without help from a guide or cheats.
FF8 used a level based "hybrid" system. Meaning some thing were based on your level but some were not. I think it was Square's attempt to address the difficulty issue and not make things all about grinding. I think they did an ok job but there's a reason they got rid of it. That said, Oblivion should have adopted that idea instead of their broken system.
I think I agree with you about the last dungeon being out of whack with the rest of the game, but it does entice you to at least attempt some of the side stuff. Also, shouldn't the final boss be some super bad guy who you should have to prepare for first? Sephiroth should only require an hour or two extra grinding, even without kotr, and a number of limit breaks pretty much own him as well.