Leveling up in RPG's

[RepentantSky]

I've been playing a lot of RPG's lately like Tales of Xillia and also revisiting the dot hack GU games, Dragon Quest 8 and some pokemon games and I realized something, sometimes the leveling up system in an RPG can really suck, or be really good. Take for example. dot hack GU, where it always takes the same amount of Exp to level up but you get so much for beating enemies that are higher levels than you, or by how many Rengeki's you get in battle. It can become a little repetitive but all in all, you can practically level up at your own pace based on your own skill which makes it fun.

Tales of Xillia often doesn't give enough Exp when you get to the higher levels which can make leveling slow, especially as you start fighting battles that can take longer to win, but you can buy and eat foods that double your exp or even equip items that double it again at the cost of giving you status effects. Because of all this, you can again choose how you want to level up, based on skill and willingness to reflect harm upon your characters to help them get stronger quicker.

Then there are games like the first few generations of pokemon and Dragon Quest 8. In gen 1 and 2 for pokemon, more than any other gens, leveling can be slow because once you beat all the trainers, you have to train off of wild pokemon unless you can grind off the elite 4, which is extremely slow. In the case of Heartgold and Soulsilver, since the elite 4 gets stronger, the fastest way to level up is to not beat all 8 Kanto gyms and keep using them to level up until you can face them again at their higher levels, or to go and train at mount silver. Both of these methods are slow and can take hours to get anywhere with. In retrospect, leveling up Black and White 2 is far too easy because the white forest and black tower having an infinite number of trainers. While it became a little slower to level up in gen 6, it still was a bit too easy.

Dragon Quest 8 makes leveling up either really hard or really slow as you prepare for the the final boss. It comes to the point where even foes who can be hard to beat don't give up enough exp. There are of course, slimes you can fight in a certain small area on the map, but they are hard to hit and can and will run away if you don't beat them quickly which can be really annoying.

The reason I bring all this up, is because I was just thinking how hard it can be to balance out the leveling up in a game so that it's not too easy, but it isn't too much of a grind fest either. I'm curious to find out what games people have played here that have you level up and what you thought about how that system worked with the game. Let me know.

[Psychospacecow]

Dragon Quest 9 has that problem too, but its even worse because each individual character can choose between a bunch of different classes that don't carry over experience AND you have to reset your levels on a class a few times to max it out.

[Mass Distraction]

Dude. Disgaea. Level cap is 9999. Which is also the level of the final hidden boss. You have no idea how much time I've spent just leveling up and I'm still level 250. At least in Disgaea you can either grind the Item Worlds to both get levels and make your items better or find a level that has enemies standing on double XP panels and just repeat it to infinity. Still love the crap out of those games.

The original Final Fantasy on the NES was a pain to level up in. It was soooooo sloooooow and just getting to a level high enough to survive through one dungeon took forever. Thankfully they fixed this in the remake.

Soul Nomad and the World Eaters also has a kind of a problem with leveling. There is no way to grind, at least not in the beginning, which makes some of the earlier battles really hard. Once a battle is done you just move to the next one. Of course there is later the whole room leveling thing which is similar to Disgaea's Item and Class Worlds. Still that doesn't necessarily make things any easier.

Valkyria Chronicles does have an interesting level up system. You use the exp points gained during battles in the Training Field to level up a single class, meaning that if you for example use 2,500 EXP on the Scout class, all of your scouts will level up. I like that, saves a lot of time when you don't have to grind individual characters.

Breath of Death VII and Cthulhu Saves the World have a good leveling system too. Every character, even the ones that didn't participate and ones that lost all their HP, get the full amount of EXP from a battle. The level up system is pretty interesting too, as you don't automatically get stat boosts like you normally do in RPGs but get to choose from two options, A and B. These options usually let you choose your stat boosts or a new move, spell or a passive ability to learn.

I do agree with Pokémon, it can be a total grindfest, especially if you're playing a Nuzlocke and need to keep your mons strong enough to not faint from every battle. 100 hours in Soul Silver and I haven't even gotten out of Johto yet.

[Psychospacecow]

A good one for levels would be Kingdom Hearts 2. All the characters gain equal experience, which is useful because Donald doesn't really get good until the end game and there's a lot of points of the game where you need to use a world's party member. Though, post game can be a bit of a grind when you're trying to buff up to fight Sephiroth.

An example for bad leveling is Kingdom Hearts Dream Drop Distance. Basically, for every non-boss enemy called a "nightmare", there is a "spirit" (I think that's what they're called. Dreameaters is the blanket term). This game has a secret boss and bonuses for maxing out mini games and certain events. There's basically no endgame. Yet, there are dream eaters that actually require more experience to get to level 99 than Sora and Riku, the playable characters.

[Carlos]

A good one to me is Super Mario RPG. I always get to the final boss usually overleveled, and the enemies are never too hard. I remember one ability that no one can forget. An attack that only Geno learns. It does 9999 damage if you get the timing right. But I don't believe it works on bosses for obious reasons. But you learn abilites rather quickly, and its always fun to see how your stats turn out in the end.

[gamemaster1991]

Legacy of Goku 2 and Buu's Fury has the problem of having character gates that need a certain level and character to pass. LoG2 is not so bad (unless your trying to unlock the bonus character, which sucks) but Buu's Fury has the habit of showing you a gate and having you level up a different character than the one your playing as.

[RepentantSky]

Legacy of Goku 2 and Buu's Fury has the problem of having character gates that need a certain level and character to pass. LoG2 is not so bad (unless your trying to unlock the bonus character, which sucks) but Buu's Fury has the habit of showing you a gate and having you level up a different character than the one your playing as.

Those Legacy of Goku games weren't actually all that bad. Yeah it was annoying if you had the wrong character and all, but fighting in it was actually pretty fun. However I can certainly see why people would get annoyed by it. I never actually played Buu's fury though.

[gamemaster1991]

Buu's Fury is pretty fun. It's like LoG2 but improved in a few ways.
The part I was thinking of when I wrote that wad near the end of the game when you get control of Gohan again. You have to give back and forth between two screen of enemiesto get him to level 140. When you get done with that, you than have to do the same thing with Goku. It takes about 15-30 minutes to do and it just brakes the flow of the two boss after the level grinding.

It is a fun game none the less, and you should give it a shot.

[Mass Distraction]

Speaking of things you can do with your levels, I like how in The World Ends With You you can change the level you're at in order to get better bonuses from battles. I often turn the enemies in Hard and try to go as low in levels as possible where the enemies are still beatable. The money and pins you get, it's great.

[RepentantSky]

I'll have to give Buu's fury a shot then.

Speaking of things you can do with your levels, I like how in The World Ends With You you can change the level you're at in order to get better bonuses from battles. I often turn the enemies in Hard and try to go as low in levels as possible where the enemies are still beatable. The money and pins you get, it's great.

I've never played that game but that sounds really interesting. I'm gonna have to try it.

[Mass Distraction]

Speaking of things you can do with your levels, I like how in The World Ends With You you can change the level you're at in order to get better bonuses from battles. I often turn the enemies in Hard and try to go as low in levels as possible where the enemies are still beatable. The money and pins you get, it's great.

I've never played that game but that sounds really interesting. I'm gonna have to try it.

Of course you still have to earn those levels but you can still change your level whenever you like up to the level you've already gotten. It's a reeeeally good game though and you should totally give it a try. The soundtrack is fantastic.

[Psychospacecow]

Then, there's games with console command access. I don't use them, but I've considered it before.

[Mass Distraction]

Console? In RPGs?

[BumblebeeCody*]

I've found a lot of games that are influence by JRPGs but aren't JRPGs have this easy levelling system. Two examples being South Park: The Stick of Truth and Child of Light. Both use Turn based combat which also results in the characters levelling up but it never feels like an integral part of the part like hardcore JRPGs(NiS games especially). Same with Nintendo; not including Pokemon, like Super Mario RPG or Mario and Luigi RPG series.

[Psychospacecow]

Console? In RPGs?

Console commands. They're the PC equivalent of debugging. I use them to test things in Fallout New Vegas, like seeing if a weapon in a pack is liable to crash my game when its level listed and such. So, I'll tgm, or toggle god mode, and get all the weapons at once.