Originally posted by DocFrance
It's the only RPG I know of that punishes you for leveling up...
If you're talking about FFVIII, you're not exactly right. At higher levels you can get better items and draw better magic from monsters.

While monster stats tend to raise faster than you as the levels get higher, you're supposed to have better magic from draws and what not (of course an experienced card player can get these things too if they know what they are doing).

If you want to get the most out of your levels in FFVIII, play the game at low levels until you get near the end of the game and you have Ability 4X and a certain GF that gives all the plus at level up bonuses (you guys know the one). Put death on Status Attack, kill the two other characters and send your person to the island where the monster level is set to 100 (Island closest to Hell I believe is the better of the two). I had an average character lvl below 20 when I started there which means by the time I hit lvl 100 I had +80 in all stats besides what I normally get for lvling and junction. Using this you can max out all the stats of your characters at and even though the monsters are leveled up with you, they are still a joke.

So high levels aren't punished in the game if you know what you're doing.

That said, I'm of the opinion that if you get all the secrets, stories, side quests and items in a game, you've completed it, no matter what your level is. I for one will only level up to 99 the second time I play the game and I will cheat or use a trick to do it so that it takes up less of my time. Some examples include the one above (it only took me a couple hours max to level up all my FFVIII characters), the Lete River trick in FFVI for SNES, game genie codes for big experience gains in FF1 and V and Game editors for FFVII PC. I only do this for the perverted satisfaction of desemating everything I come arcoss.