Grinding in games: a major buzz kill
For the first time in three months, I picked up “Final Fantasy XIII” again, however, I must confess that I’ve never finished a “Final Fantasy” game in my life. Then again, only a few people have finished such lengthy and monotonous games, but if there is one thing about “Final Fantasy” that annoys me, it has to be grinding.
Anyone who has played a “Final Fantasy” game or any MMO knows that grinding is an essential part of the game. For those who don’t know, grinding is the lengthy and boring process of defeating enemies in order to make your characters stronger. Fortunately, this is only important and needed in any RPG games. Despite all of this, I must ask, who is the jerk that decided to input grinding in a game? Not only that, but how do gamers stay motivated?
Grinding is something that I don’t completely understand, because, for one thing, when you encounter any adversary at any part of the game, you should be able to defeat them on the spot, instead of fighting them, dying and then making your character stronger for the next two days. For those who like an immense, open world for their games, keep in mind there will be enemies out there that you will encounter that can defeat your character with their pinky finger. But that shouldn’t happen. Don’t get me wrong, I like open world games as well, but I want to fight an enemy that I can at least kill in the next five minutes instead of in the next five hours, or even five days.
Some of you might argue there are indicators on enemies to tell you if they are really hard or really easy, but I don't think that's enough. My suggestion would be to put them in an area, which can be accessed as the game progresses. It might sound like the game is linear, but it’s the sensible thing to do. Would you like to start the game off by running into the most powerful monster in the game? Didn’t think so. To game developers (I’m talking to you SquareEnix), don’t do this. I beg of you, don’t troll us with such powerful adversaries when we can’t fight them yet. Gradually increase the difficulty of each battle, like every other game, so we can love the game, instead of committing a rage quit every hour.
