I've been thinking about creating an RPG as part of my future work. Actually my future work involves both RPG games and the movie industry, but on the account of games, I have always thought that with the right tweaks, the battle system of FF9 is a pretty good one. For example, levels don't increase as your level increases - every enemy has a set level and given the time of the game, different enemies can gain new strength. For example, the same enemy before the Lunar Cry could have doubled his level number after the Lunar Cry.

With this, this could actually make FF8 much harder instead of being at level 20 and still beating the game because the enemy would be at level 20 too. What if Ultimecia was set at level 70? Adel at level 60? Omega at 100? Seriously this could make the game much longer, or it could make the game extremely boring because you're leveling up just to get the Proof of Omega.

Or it could make the game extremely difficult - maybe even more difficult than FF7. There's only so many elements you can junction to defense, so many statuses you can protect yourself with. Without time and patience, it's impossible to get all character stats to the desired maximum. Looking back, people did not enjoy Devil May Cry II as much as the original because the original was much harder to beat at harder levels. It would seem that difficult games is what the majority crave.

In my RPG I imagine difficult bosses and even more difficult superbeasts like Ozma or the Ultima Weapon. That could probably encourage people to buy my RPG. Would FF8, if the level of difficulty of the game increased, surpass FF7 as the majority claim it did not?


Imagine this: 2nd battle against Edea. By the time you reach her, you would probably be at around level 20-25. Let's set Edea at level 32. Seifer can fall, but when she finally says "Enough games. All SeeDs must die!", she casts Malstorm, which is like Gravija but inflicts Curse status too. Let's step this up a bit. Let's triple her HP, double her magic stats, increase her Speed so she has the potential to deal 2 hits every 4 seconds. This will a) increase the realism that you are fighting a Sorceress, an extremely powerful entity of the FF8 world with unlimited power, and b) will make this battle almost near impossible to beat without a proper stragedy. The fact that her HP is tripled means a) limit breaks would have a lesser effect and require more risk being at critical satus, and b) increase the length of the battle, therefore making it "challenging" because a lot of things can happen in a long fight. Let's say she has about 1000 HP left and then she suddenly casts critical Meteor? That would decimate your party, and also create some unwelcome hostility between you and the game CD.

But it seems that difficult games make greater enjoyability. List a boss that you would tone up the stats for, and give it a set level. If you were to Triple Ultimecia's HP so that she could survive Lion Heart and counter, for example, that could make all the difference between greater satisfaction for beating the game or disappointment for beating a game near impossible to beat (like FF1. I hear that the game is near impossible to beat).