lassarina's Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey review

Grinding kicks ass. I guess when the game gives you an option to grind, it adds to the flexibility of your approach towards the game.Mass Effect 2 won't let you grind because it only gives you experience points after a mission is done, and not while you're killing enemies, so not having the option to grind feels a little bit restrictive.

This is RunningFree. I'm calling it.

It's too early to tell for sure, of course, but for reasons that should be obvious, I wouldn't bet against your bet.

As far as grinding goes, I tend to avoid it in RPGs but I don't mind its presence. In the SMT games, I sometimes welcome it because there's so much to do as you grind, so many cool skills to learn and such. I would imagine that if there's no grinding allowed in Mass Effect, which I've not played, that's because the game is structured in such a way that grinding is unnecessary.

I think we can tell for sure now.

Obvious troll is obvious.

Edit: Goodbye.

RunningFree, when you return in two months under a different username, I might recommend that you not immediately project your identity by pimping SMT and bashing Mass Effect in the same post. You need some new material, man.

It always felt to me like you had to grind in any SMT game if you wanted your demons to be worth a damn.

At least if you want a level 99 High Pixie.

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Some low-hanging trolling fruit for any young prospects out there:

At least people who get banned from the Atlus message boards are still able to play their games. You can thank me later.

Yeah, I don't generally buy PC games, but I'll really make sure not to buy any from EA unless they get their crap together and ditch the DRM.

//Zig

Also, grinding is a lazy way to add length or flexibility to a game. The inclusion of grinding supports a gamer culture that believes in becoming powerful without becoming skilled. That ultimately keeps RPG players weak -- when a genuinely great RPG comes along that doesn't rely on grinding, people will dismiss it for being "too hard" (which will in turn reveal their own weakness). The expectation of grinding is a clear design flaw; increasing the complexity of later battles is a more stimulating approach. I won't dismiss a game due to grinding -- I love the SMT series because it does so much else right -- but it really is a shame that the genre relies on it so much.

Grinding doesn't just affect RPGs, but strategy and action games too. Riviera was cool because you couldn't grind, so it was always tough. Golden Axe: Beast Rider was cool for the same reason -- there were no red orbs or red soul power to spend on upgrading stats, you just had to become better. By the time I finished the game, I had become a godly fighter. That's the biggest feeling of accomplishment I've felt from an action game in a long time.

//Zig

There's grinding intelligently and grinding mindlessly. If "Dragon Quest IV" throws a tough boss at me, I don't mind taking a little time to level Kiryl and Borya up to add spells like "Fullheal" and "Oomph" to their arsenal. On the other end of the spectrum is "Glory of Heracles II", where every boss is like Borgan and random monsters can wantonly destroy your expensive gear.

Glory of Heracles 2...guh...it was a fun game and all, but really killed my desire to do FAQs. Grind to buy that expensive suit of armor and then watch it get destroyed by a frickin' mountain goat or something. I couldn't imagine playing that game without the benefit of an emulator's freeze states.