The Via Infinito and Stat Maxing

[Karifean]

I love this dungeon. It's probably my favorite dungeon in FF. Why? Because it's always challenging and if you don't pay attention, you're going to die. Thanks to X-2's battle system, it's fun to try and find a strategy to get through. And no, I didn't use Cat Nip. If Cat Nip hadn't been so broken, this dungeon probably would've gotten the reputation it deserved. :|

Which brings up an interesting point: do you think being able to max out your stats is a good thing? FFX-2 didn't have this and thus, it was able to create one of the most difficult dungeons because you are very limited to what you can have - two accessory slots is not much. Compare that to say FFX, where once you max out your stats, you can kill anything and everything with barely a problem.

So what do you think of the Via Infinito? Also, do you think stat maxing is a good or bad feature?

[Jinx]

I love it. I love that you can go up and heal, then go back down to the last floor you were on; you don't have to start from the beginning again. It's a nice little change of pace when you are bored with normal gameplay, and what to do a mini-game. (I consider it more a a mini-game, even though it's a side-quest).

[Formalhaut]

It was hilarious because the rest of the game was pretty much patethically easy, yet the Via Infinito is one of the toughest challenges in the entire game, maybe even in the series.

Floors 1-60 were fine, even if the Floor 40 and 60 bosses were very tough, but really 70 onwards was a struggle. The enemies were relentless, and the bosses were also so, so tough.

[Sephiroth]

I hate dragons jumping out of corners and Tomberrys in holes.

However, I think it is cool what Trema does with Zeyon.

[DMKA]

It's quite possibly the hardest dungeon in the entire series, which is ironic, seeing as it's featured in what is otherwise the easiest game in the series. :p

It's so hard that many people probably would have never completed it if not for catnip. Myself included.

If the rumor about us getting the International version in the HD remaster is true, it should prove quite fun, seeing as in the International version they nerfed catnip by making it force the character wearing it into berserk and slow status, meaning you can't control said character, rendering it essentially useless. :p

[SteahMeLee]

Also, do you think stat maxing is a good or bad feature?

It's ALWAYS a bad feature in every FF to me, but not being able to do it, it's actually doing it that is bad! To me they have to give you the chance to max out whatever you want to whoever you want just to let you choose what you wanna max to who and not to max everything to everyone!
Every character should be strong in some traits and weak in others!

[Nebulance]

I think I managed to get to floor 80--83, and then I got clobbered; never made it past that. Probably my favorite part about the game in general.

[Cosmiccandy]

Generally speaking I agree its a pretty good dungeon, but I think it could do with some trimming of the fat. 100 might be a nice round number, but I remember long stretches were I was just bored of randomly generated floors I had already "solved" numerous times. Granted those long stretches without accessible healing can make things more tense.

What I think was done right with the Via Infinito was that even when your characters were level-capped and had pretty much the best equipment availiable (Iron Duke non-withstanding), you couldn't just derp your way through it. If you didn't think encounters through you were liable to die very quickly to Elder Drakes, Mega Tonberries, Chac, and of course the final bosses. Heck, I even got nuked to hell with Ultima because of an Oversouled Mushroom Cloud to give me a game over out of nowhere.

[Mirage]

I love this dungeon. It's probably my favorite dungeon in FF. Why? Because it's always challenging and if you don't pay attention, you're going to die. Thanks to X-2's battle system, it's fun to try and find a strategy to get through. And no, I didn't use Cat Nip. If Cat Nip hadn't been so broken, this dungeon probably would've gotten the reputation it deserved. :|

Which brings up an interesting point: do you think being able to max out your stats is a good thing? FFX-2 didn't have this and thus, it was able to create one of the most difficult dungeons because you are very limited to what you can have - two accessory slots is not much. Compare that to say FFX, where once you max out your stats, you can kill anything and everything with barely a problem.

So what do you think of the Via Infinito? Also, do you think stat maxing is a good or bad feature?

Stat maxing isn't a feature. It is a function of battle strength being based on statistics. Every game that lets you influence stats has stat maxing. The only way for a game to not have stat maxing is to not let the player change any stats. Games such as these exist, though, but they are usually classified as FPS games or sometimes very basic platformers. I guess RTS games and such could count too.

Note that changing gear also counts as influencing combat stats, so every game where you can upgrade gear also allows for stat maxing. Another reason why calling stat maxing a feature makes little sense. Practically every single RPG in existence, digital or analogue, allows for stat maxing.

FFX-2 allows for stat maxing as well. Stat maxing is to reach the absolute maximum stats the game allows you to have, regardless if you hit some magic number like 255 or 9999 or something. FFX has stat maxing, even if you can't both have 99999 HP and 9999 MP while also having 255 in all other stats. All stats at 255 and somewhere around 50k HP is "maxed stats" in that game, for example.

Being able to reach the hard cap of the game is not what determines if the game can have hard dungeons or not. It is pretty trivial to limit the amount of stat maxing someone can do to certain points in the game. Trema in FFX-2 is for example pretty hard the first time you do the game, because you have no iron dukes, but I can guarantee you that it is significantly easier with 2x iron dukes on every character, which combined with max levels and jobs is "maxed stats" for that game.