There is an entire psychology behind enticing players to continue playing (especially in Pay Per Month games) by introducing random interval rewards. It is identical to gambling and the house always wins. Of course in this case we want to house the win some of the time or they would not publish any more games, but that does not mean they cannot make the gambling process more entertaining.
@Misery "the first Wild Arms, for example, did not require any grinding, even for me to go beat all of the optional bosses." I have played Wild Arms: Alter Code F. Without grinding, you can't win. It's a remastered version of the original Wild Arms. Trust me, I have a very hard time fighting monsters past the late 20s. It's hardly what I call a game where grinding is not needed. Unless you're extremely better at that game than me. If I didn't settle down and start grinding in that game, if I wanted to play my PS2 again, with how much trouble they cause me, I'd have to spend a while. Wild Arms 2, 3, 4, 5 were all much easier. To be fair, Disgaea 3 doesn't need that much grinding except for the optional uber bosses. I do admit it is a game that only good for certain people. I play games to have fun, and blaze my own path, so to speak. Grinding isn't too hard for me to do. I do understand though, why it would be a pain. I'm not a big fan of overly difficult games. And Ragu o Ragula is not exactly an easy fight, however someday I hope to fight him. I also hope to someday fight Baal from Disgaea 3. He's a lot like Ragu o Ragula, except he doesn't require you to be immune to fire. However, increased game speed in this game, I'd have to say it's a niche. Some people like it and will use it, and others like me, think this game is fast enough. I came from Final Fantasy 7 and 8, I played other games with long summons. There is no animation in this game that needs speeding up compared to Knights of the Round.
@DavidB1111 Actually, I did play through Alter Code; I liked it for the same reasons as the original, except that it was also just plain more challenging (the original was a bit easy in some parts, tougher in others). I actually didnt have too much trouble with the game without grinding... oh, it was hard, but I like hard. And I'm used to hyper-difficult RPGs (the only sort I'll usually bother with) like the SMT games, or games of a style similar to Wizardry (those first-person-turn-based-dungeon-crawl sorts that tend to murder you over and over and over in the first floor, haha), so Alter Code was.... well, easier than what I was used to at that point. Superb game though, no matter how you look at it. I always thought so, at least. Wild Arms (both versions) will always be special to me for being one of the very, very few JRPGs to hold my attention so that I actually play all the way through, instead of getting like a few hours in and losing interest. I wouldnt mind another playthrough of it, except that it's on the PS2 and I just loathe the horrible thing so much that I tend to refuse to touch it these days.
@Misery Oye. IF you like SMT games, you might as well stay out of every topic related to making this game more difficult. Seriously. I've played a few, never got far enough to find a challenge...but that's not my fault. I got distracted by other games. I'm just simply saying your experiences are tainted for lack of a better term. Also, Disgaea 3 is a freaking cakewalk compared to those games. I just don't see the point of having an experience filled with hard games, and then playing this game. If you do, at least, don't ask for the game to be made harder, your experience is tainted with games that make the word Nintendo Hard look as easy as pie.
@DavidB1111 Oh, I'm well aware of that, haha. Nintendo Hard indeed Dredmor, at least, IS challenging enough to hold my interest, though even on GR it's quite not as hard as I'm used to. On the note of the SMT games, they do tend to START OUT at a point where they dont seem so bad... but go a few hours into them, and.... yeah. They reach "OH GOD WHY" difficulty fast. The Persona games are the exception, for whatever reason. Those are MUCH easier than the other SMT titles. A good example of an SMT difficulty spike is a boss known as the Matador. I think he's referenced multiple times on TVTropes. The game (Nocturne) up to that point (which is still fairly early on) is hard, but it's not THAT hard.... until the Matador appears. Later bosses in the game are MUCH harder than he is... but he's infamous simply for the sudden spike in difficulty. The very first thing he does in the fight is cast a spell that quadruples all of his stats. And then he takes 2 turns at once, instead of one, like every other foe. Nasty little snot. I've seen worse, but he's simply the most infamous for this particular thing. And I gotta say, you make for some good conversation on topics like these I should stop posting for the night here though, other things to do, sigh...
@Misery Thank you for appreciating my insanity. And while this game isn't as hard as you're used to, it is still fun, and hey, I think that's all that matters. Not every boss can be Matador. Or for that matter, Ragu o Ragula.
You know a fight I thought was hard? There is one early in Final Fantasy VII where you fight a mobster that encases your teammates in crystal pyramids. I had the hardest time with that boss because he would win after a specific number of rounds. At that level it was very hard to optimize each turn so perfectly that you could beat him without quite a bit of grinding. It took every ounce of young brainpower to pull it off. Some years later I learned you could just break the pyramids by attacking your allies.
