<div style='font: 12pt ; text-align: left; '>This is sort of a response to one of Zeus's posts buried down there (on how nothing's challenging these days) but it's something that's been bugging me. What makes a RPG hard? Today's RPG are hard only because they require you to level more. You can make a game where the boss kills you in two hits or even one and yes this boss would be very hard, but it requires no tactics to defeat it other than either:
1. Luck
2. Level up some more
When you say you want a hard RPG, most of you are actually saying you want a game where you've to go around in circles for hours before you stand a chance on the boss. That is not the type of RPG I want. I think Diablo 2 has the difficulty part figured out pretty well, though it does have the advantage of being real time which gives considerably more flexibility. Until your character becomes just grossly overpowered (usually level 30+), leveling up does not yield significant advantages to the current battle. Yes you get a couple more HP and your attacks do a little bit more damage but your physical level rarely makes a battle outright trivial. This should be the same for RPG. The boss should provide a decent challenge whether you've been spending the last 3 hours XPing or if you run every other battle. Of course the former should have an easier time than the latter, but not significantly so.
Star Ocean 2 on Universe mode has regular enemies that can kill you in one or two hits. To the casual player this may seem *hard*. Of course if you understand the game mechanics and have the proper skills equipped, it's every bit as easy as the normal mode. In fact I beat Normal at level 110 the first time I played, and beat the game on Universe on level 80 even though the boss has twice as much HP and does around twice as much damage too, with the same equipment!</div>
1. Luck
2. Level up some more
When you say you want a hard RPG, most of you are actually saying you want a game where you've to go around in circles for hours before you stand a chance on the boss. That is not the type of RPG I want. I think Diablo 2 has the difficulty part figured out pretty well, though it does have the advantage of being real time which gives considerably more flexibility. Until your character becomes just grossly overpowered (usually level 30+), leveling up does not yield significant advantages to the current battle. Yes you get a couple more HP and your attacks do a little bit more damage but your physical level rarely makes a battle outright trivial. This should be the same for RPG. The boss should provide a decent challenge whether you've been spending the last 3 hours XPing or if you run every other battle. Of course the former should have an easier time than the latter, but not significantly so.
Star Ocean 2 on Universe mode has regular enemies that can kill you in one or two hits. To the casual player this may seem *hard*. Of course if you understand the game mechanics and have the proper skills equipped, it's every bit as easy as the normal mode. In fact I beat Normal at level 110 the first time I played, and beat the game on Universe on level 80 even though the boss has twice as much HP and does around twice as much damage too, with the same equipment!</div>
