I wasted my time with FF6

[Clyde Arronway]

if he changed strength as your level progresses, it would destroy the concept of an rpg. the point is not to strategize or get lucky, it's to find a way to become stronger than the enemy.

[The Man]

The point *is* to strategize. In games like Final Fantasy V and Suikoden II, blind leveling up *isn't* enough to defeat many bosses. I always felt that the point of an RPG was discovering a way to survive a fight and annihilate the enemy, not necessarily get stronger than them. Blind levelling up takes all thought and strategy out of the game; it feels a hell of a lot more rewarding to win a fight when you're underleveled than to win a fight when you're so ridiculously overleveled you barely have to lift a finger to defeat the enemy.

And would that mean you don't consider Final Fantasy VIII, in which enemies level up with the party, to be an RPG?

[ChocoboRider]

it really all depends on what you play the game for. if u play to simulate killing things, then blind levelling up is good. more importantly, it depends on how you want to go through the story. some people (like me, sometimes) prefer to get to an uber-high level so we can take as much as we can from the storyline without having to worry about dying. others prefer the challenge of having to level up naturally, as the game progresses, and focus more on an equilibrium between storyline and gameplay.

[Clyde Arronway]

yes, exactly. Who want's to kill things randomly in VI or VII or IX when you can see all the wonderfulness at once.