How do *you* usually play J-RPGs?

[ForceStealer]

The Phon Coast was exactly where I quit 12 on my first playthrough. I had forced myself to grind for several hours in the Sandsea, then I had manged to stave off grinding for a good while by sneaking my way to the chest containing the Deathbringer sword well before I was "supposed" to. The Phon Coast was where everything had caught up to me and I had no desire to run in circles on the beach for hours; I just wanted to go to Archades.
I have too many games - specifically RPGs - on my backlog to justify hours spent with no progress. Maybe if I was going to be trapped somewhere with only one game it would be 12 so that I would have nothing better to do than to grind all day.

 

[Octo]

- I do my best to speak to all the NPCs and ensure that I've triggered all the lines they have. Unfortunately this is keeping me from properly enjoying Grandia (which I am currently playing) because the NPCs are too many, the text doesn't scroll fast enough, and I have to speak to each of them three or four times to be sure that they have nothing more to say. So as an effect...Grandia mostly bores me right now. XP
Choose to not speak to every NPC? IMPOSSIBLE!

I do this, because NPC's are what makes an RPG and RPG. They set the scene and make the world more believeable.

- I never flee from battles. My completionist nerve fears that the game will have a visible counter for how many times you have fled from battle and I consider the save file to be "corrupted/dirty/incomplete" if the counter goes above zero. My pride also prevents me from fleeing. YOU WIN OR YOU DIE! Flee-based commands are a nono.

I used to flee from battles quite a lot, until I realised that was only going to make the game harder for me lol. I don't really enjoy battles all that much, unless I have a specific goal in mind ie: trying to steal/gain a specific item from and enemy or enemies that drop large amounts of money. But anyway the turn based battle system bores the pants off of me.

- If there is a bug or an overpowered move, I will exploit it. I will never choose to not use an overpowered move just to make the game harder. Some might avoid the Enemy Skill materia in FFVII for this reason, but I simply can't avoid it. I don't see the point with making the battles last longer by not equipping and evolving Enemy Skill.

For the same reasons above. Whatever my most powerful move/spell is, provided I have enough MP/whatever to use it I will just spam over and over until the battle is won. Not interested in perpetuating battles.

I suppose my playstyle can be summarized as that of the "perfectionist exploiter". What is your style? The one who speeds through the game and keeps your characters low level? Or are you the grinder?

My style is 'half assed' I do the bare minimum to get through. Not a fan of grinding. Except once on FFVII I spent a while grinding in the slums to make the rest of the game a piece of piss

 

[Tennyo]

I only grind when I absolutely HAVE to. Otherwise, I'm all about the story. I ponder about what kinds of decisions my characters would make based upon what knowledge they themselves would have to make those decisions. These are the things I use to decide what path to take, or where to explore for side quests, or whether or not I should take on a side quest, or how I should reply to an npc, etc.

Even for who I should have in my party. If I'm at a point in a story where, say, I'm in a certain character's homeland, or whatever, they will be in the party just because it seems plot relevant, whether they are a good fighter or not.

 

[Abortedj]

Playing Xenoblade now, and I do like this game. However, it is one of the "grindiest" games I have ever played. You need to grind money, grind exp, grind friendships between characters, grind skills (2 kinds, in to different ways), and on top of that many of the side quest are grind centric. I have 50 hour sunk into this game, and I think I am still not very far in, I doubt if I am even half-way.

It is a good game, and I like many of its aspects, but this amount of grinding is... off putting.

 

[wander]

erm, i play the fucking game. aim for/achieve perfect play. how else does one play a game

if you're going to do the bare minimum, save yourself the hassle and watch the game on youtube

 

[Abortedj]

Never mind. Nothing to see here. Move along.

 

[wander]

if you're going to do the bare minimum, save yourself the hassle and watch the game on youtube

of course, FFXIII is played by watching it, so that's an exception