RPG Difficulty tiers

[Julius Seeker]

On a scale of 1 to 10, how difficult are RPGs? Of course, this is going to be like a first draft. This topic came to mind when I noticed people were saying “Romancing Saga 2 is Dark Souls hard” which I guess is something like 98% masochism. I don’t agree, it’s only difficult if the player keeps save scumming and doing stuff over and over again rather than taking their black eyes, bruises, and broken fingers and pushing forward.

This is how I see games - right now - I expect to revise this list. 1 being easiest and 10 being most difficult.


1. Pokémon
2. Final Fantasy 6
3. Final Fantasy 7, 8, X, Skies of Arcadia, Secret of Mana.
4. Final Fantasy 4, Dragon Quest 4 and 5, Xenogears, Xenoblade Chronicles games, Super Mario RPG, Chrono Trigger.
5. Dragon Quest 1, 3, Xenosaga Episode 1, Witcher 3 (normal difficulty).
6. Final Fantasy Legend 2 Romancing Saga 2, Final Fantasy Tactics, Fire Emblem Awakening (normal difficulty.
7. Xenosaga Episode 2, Final Fantasy 1 and 3 (NES), Fire Emblem Blazing Sword.
8. Phantasy Star 2, Final Fantasy Legend 1
9. Final Fantasy 2 (NES) ????
10. Wizardry 4 and 5, Fire Emblem games on high difficulty.

Final Fantasy 2 (NES) might be easier than Phantasy Star 2 and FFL1, all I know is I kept wandering into death… still not as harsh as Wizardry games.

RPGs can be tricky to judge for difficulty, even a seasoned gamer can have significant struggles with Pokémon, but for players who know about elemental weaknesses, and status effects, these games are beyond easy.

IMO, around difficult 4-6 is the sweet spot, when getting up 7 and above things start to feel a bit like torture. Difficulty 3 and below is fine if the game is enjoyable or has other features, I find RPGs are generally highly enjoyable so I don’t mind lower difficulties at all, usually. Final Fantasy Legend and Phantasy Star are worse off because of their difficulty, but Fire Emblem games are as much strategy as RPG, and higher difficulty tends to make strategy games more fun. I try to aim difficulty 5 as a somewhat ideal state, where the difficulty is high enough to contribute to the fun factor, but low enough that it doesn’t become frustrating. I’m also making this list based on the assumption that games aren’t exploited, Dragon Quest 1 has certain enemies (like gold giants) that give massive rewards and basically allow players to grind out levels and gear very quickly; FF1 has this spot above the Pirate Town (a bug) where enemies from a much later part of the game appear, and they happen to be ridiculously weak against fire, so a player can get late game levels before Marsh cave and make an otherwise hard game fairly easy—also, in FF1, a black belt party starts off a struggle, but the last two-thirds of the game are trivially easy if you remove all equipment, since they can dodge everything and get like 4-16 hit combos that can even kill bosses in a couple of rounds.

[Don]

From what I understand Romancing Saga 2 you could get into a position where you saved in a spot where you can no longer complete the game. It'd be like if you saved before Wiegraf in FFT without having the right setup (usually split damage) but I'd say that's more of a problem with illogical save points. Most RPGs aren't very difficult unless they have like illogical enemy placement (e.g. stuff suddenly went way higher in level) or unfair stats/mechanics and if you go that route a 9 can always be made into a 10 by making the stats higher, but a 9 can also be brought down to a 1 if you just level up even more assuming the game allows for such mechanism.

I think Grandia 3 was one of the hardest RPG I've ever played mechanically. I remember there are guides that believe some bosses cannot be defeated without using the time stop guardian at progression which is totally wrong but it goes to show how hard the bosses are. If you turn off the hints on timing you need a lot of familiarity with how fast each attack comes out for your enemy and yourself, and you got to know stuff like how fast each of your character's running speed and whether their critical attack has a frame priority or not, and the game even gives you good cues on who has a frame rate advantage like Miranda's critical attack she lunges forward ducking which is a very strong sign that her interrupt has a huge priority over anything else (she'd almost always duck under an enemy's attack even if the enemy started up the attack earlier than she does). Now Grandia 3 is not particularly harsh on stats, so you can usually just brute force the bosses fairly easily since it costs like 20 MP to heal everyone to full and you can do that like 10 times on one tank of MP before even considering stuff like items or special abilities, so it's not a hard game overall, but it is mechanically much harder than a game that just piles huge stats that you can generally overcome by going around in a circle a few more times.

[Julius Seeker]

My guess is that the “cannot proceed” blocker stuff in Romancing Saga 2 would be at the end of the game—probably the worst place to have it for most. You name a character at the beginning of the game, this character is the name of your Emperor in the final generation. If that Emperor loses all their lives and dies, it’s game over. My guess is that the final boss or some enemy on the critical path has some instant death attacks and it’s impossible or highly unlikely to get by without your Emperor dying at least a few times. If your character has 1 life left, they’re dead.

There are life potions that add lives to the characters, and I was recommended to save those for the final generation. That’s about all I know. The version I’m playing is the remaster, and they’ve added in some extra content, but it’s essentially the same game as the SNES with a graphical engine facelift. It might be that they did something to fix the blockers, but most likely not. New Game Plus is always an option.

Fire Emblem games can basically all end up that way if enough of your army dies off—I’ve been there a few times which is why I put that one at 7, I prefer to play through regularly and hit dead ends than save scum. I haven’t got to the end of Romancing Saga 2 yet, so that game might go up in difficulty to 7.

In Romancing Saga 2, during any other generation except the final, getting killed sends your back to your capital city and forces you to select new characters, but it won’t block progress.

[Don]

In the final save point before the final boss there is no way out and there are no enemies around it. If you saved there, which most people did, and you couldn't beat the final boss, you got no way of continuing the game without starting the whole game over. The last boss is also a very massive jump in difficulty that you likely wouldn't go in expecting, but you cannot increase your power if you saved on the last save point without another game to go backup on. I mean if you did enough preparation work it's always beatable, but people just don't normally assume you've such a huge jump in difficulty and that you can't back out of it. There's like an item that makes the fight way easier and they're only good for that fight because it's one of those Saga style 'this ability only works on that ability' except 'that ability' is something that kills you that only the last boss uses. Also the item doesn't even tell you what it's supposed to protect you against, so even if you acquired it you could assume maybe it's a joke or a cursed item that you're not supposed to use.

[Julius Seeker]

Out of curiosity, have you played Romancing Saga 2, or just done your research?

Because I think your assessment seems more correct than what I’ve read elsewhere. I haven’t fought the last boss, but have come across insanely difficult bosses that made me turn aside and go elsewhere.

[Eric]

Certainly showing our age with this list! What about modern JRPGs any challenges? heh

[Don]

Out of curiosity, have you played Romancing Saga 2, or just done your research?

Because I think your assessment seems more correct than what I’ve read elsewhere. I haven’t fought the last boss, but have come across insanely difficult bosses that made me turn aside and go elsewhere.

I didn't play Romancing Saga 2, but after doing some research and found out that you can't leave the last save point it's obvious why people can't finish the game. You can tell by the Youtube videos that the boss does multiple attacks that is likely to do 999 damage plus an assortment of status attacks that you likely can't defend against without the right setup, and normally that wouldn't be a problem except you can't leave the last save point to acquire the very specific gear and skills needed to overcome that. I played Saga Frontier and was told that was similar to the rest of the Saga games and it's very clear that the enemies all have some totally ridiculous stats that are meant to be beaten by gimmicks.

[Julius Seeker]

I’m not looking forward to that. But there are some auto-revive spells that can deal with those sorts of attacks. Buffs that counter certain types of attacks are fairly common in this game. There’s one that the party can get fairly early on that makes the entire party immune to darts and arrows. I recently got a spell that makes a single party member immune to slash attacks (swords, claws and such), there are also specific abilities that can be equipped to players (like FF8’s junction system) that make the player immune to certain attack types without the need to cast a buff spell. So, with some research going in, I think I’ll be able to deal with the boss.

But yeah, I don’t like gimmicky battles either. IMO, consistent types of challenges are generally more fun—although, gimmicky bosses aren’t nearly as annoying as gimmicky regular enemies. I’ll say this, though, I’m impressed with Romancing Saga 2’s robust systems while keeping execution simple and generally painless. I don’t feel there are any weapon or magic types that feel more important than others, as it seems that everything has some kind of great skills/spells in the track. Classes seem fairly well balanced, it’s hard to go wrong, and it never hurts to experiment… There is a large selection of classes in this game.

Certainly showing our age with this list! What about modern JRPGs any challenges? heh

Haha, I should probably update my references.

To be fair, the Romancing Saga games I’m playing are recent remasters. And the game’s all new to me.

But yeah, I haven’t played many newer RPGs outside of Witcher 3 and the Xenoblade games. RPGs also had a broader difficulty spectrum in the past. You’ll never find something even close to Wizardry these days.

Recent RPGs are also more difficult to assess. Dragon Quest 9 is a difficulty of 2 or 3 if you consider the core game (which is like 45-60 hours) but then there is the outer game, which is 250+ hours, and can get insanely difficult. Xenoblade Chronicles games are similar, especially X.

[Don]

I haven't played most newer RPGs either. I haven't bought a console since PS2 and the stuff they port to PC are usually some kind of FF or a Tale of XYZ and they often feel overpriced.

I think Saga Frontier 2's gets a reputation for hard because you can't leave the last save point. There isn't any enemy you can fight at the last save point either. It's this place where you save and you can only fight the final boss and that's it. It's almost like having permadeath for a game that is already quite hard since most people don't keep extra save files around on the assumption that you wouldn't have such illogical save points.

[Julius Seeker]

Modern RPGs still have those issues. What they do is either prevent you from saving (Xenogames do this) or they warn you to make an additional backup save before proceeding (Witcher does this), Witcher 3 has checkpoint and auto saves alongside manual saves.

I’m not sure if I’d consider design flaws or bugs at one point as real difficulty in a game. I’d have to say it should apply to the full experience of the game. That’s why I put FF Tactics and Romancing Saga 2 at a 6 rather than an 8 or 9. I don’t find either feels very different from Final Fantasy Legend 2, despite the fact that FFL2 doesn’t have any blocker Wiegraf moments. Games like Phantasy Star 2 and Final Fantasy Legend 1 are consistently painful to play because of their difficulty, even when stopping to grind for long periods, it doesn’t take very long to feel very behind in stats and equipment again.

With Wizardry, it’s like 3-5 hours before it even feels comfortable travelling around the opening areas of the game. It often feels like almost all money goes into reviving characters or removing serious status effects… also characters age, so they have an expiration date. Much of the game is just getting good equipment and stuff so your later characters will have a chance. Unlike Romancing Saga 2, replacement characters aren’t generally superior to the ones that just died.

[Eric]

Oh Persona 5 handles modern JRPG difficulty really well specifically Persona 5 Royal. Originally the game punished your exp/item/money gain at the highest difficulty this just made the experience take longer and forced you to grind more, Royal fixed this issue by actually increasing exp/money/item drops, made the overall experience much more fun and challenging from start to finish. Royal did lower your damage some more but honestly damage is busted late game in Persona so it worked out heh.

Difficulty Damage Received Damage Dealt Exp Items
Safety x0.5 x2 x3 x5
Easy x0.5 x1 x1 x1
Normal x1 x1 x1 x1
Hard x1.6 x0.8 x1 x1
Merciless x1.6 x0.8 x0.4 x0.4

Persona 5 Royal
Difficulty Damage Received Damage Dealt Exp Items
Safety x0.5 x1.6 x1.5 x1.5
Easy x0.5 x1 x1.2 x1.2
Normal x1 x1 x1 x1
Hard x1.6 x0.8 x1 x1
Merciless x1.6 x0.65 x1.2 x1.2

Accidentally posted this in the other thread rofl

[Julius Seeker]

I’ve never played a Persona game. I have two of them unopened, one for the PS2 (I think, maybe PS3), one for the Vita (although maybe PSP?). But I might give it a go soon, the latest versions of Persona 3, 4, and 5 were all announced for Switch for the autumn along with Nier Automata - which looks like more my type of game on the surface.

There! Some modern RPGs I might play by year’s end!

Maybe someone can tell me which Persona game is best to play first. Not necessarily the easiest, but the one with the best pacing and most interesting concepts?

[Eric]

I can only speak to my experience with Persona hopefully it can help you make a decision.

I bought Persona 3 because I saw it was a JRPG with solid reviews wayyyyyy back on the PSP. It's a fun but flawed game, I've never actually beaten it. The way the dungeon is structured is kind of a drag and I wasn't crazy about any of the main cast. The gameplay was adjusted for the PSP version(3 actually forced your companions to be CPU controlled for a while before the PSP version gave you the option to manually control them). This was a PS2 game that was ported to PSP and they took away the ability to walk around, something they didn't repeat for Persona 4 Golden. One day I'll actually buckle down and finish this game, the foundation was really solid though, which is why I gave Persona 4 Golden a chance in the aftermath.

Persona 4 Golden I got near the end of the PS Vita's lifetime, it was an incredibly fun game, it starts slow(The intro is a solid 1-2 hours depending on how fast you read and if you let the audio flow) but I had a lot more fun with the game than 3. The characters were a lot more fun to interact with, the gameplay was better then 3 it was designed around your party being controlled and swapped in/out, the dungeons have some uniqueness to them even though they're all procedure generated(like 3), and the main theme of the game is a lot more relatable since the primary bosses of each bosses are shadow versions of the main cast. This was also the game that kinda blew up the series and made everyone fall in love with the series and highly anticipate Persona 5. I've tried to go back to P3 a few times and haven't been able to really dig into it, but I've gone back to Persona 4 after Persona 5 and it still holds up. I'd say the only bad thing about the game is that you can miss the "true ending" if you don't max out social links which makes a guide more or less necessary unless you plan to beat it multiple times.

Persona 5 is the only JRPG I've beaten 4x times in the last decade(6 if you count the 2x Persona 5 Royale playthroughs). It's that good, I absolutely love Persona 5.

If P3 & 4 were concepts for perfecting the formula they started in P3 after abandoning the P1/2 formula, then Persona 5 perfected it and then went and polished that further in Royale(See the differences in difficutly above). Everything about this game is fan-freakin-tastic. It has the quickest intro into the game's action compared to P3/4's slow burns into the world. It is incredibly stylized compared to every single other JRPG on the market, everything in the game from navigating menus, to picking out your attacks, to knocking all the enemies and unleashing an all-out-attack. Navigating through the personas and building up the right personas to deal with enemies in each dungeon seems very streamlined and makes you comfortable for confronting the dungeons and final bosses. The actual gameplay of knocking enemies and using your personas and setting up things flows so incredibly well The cast of the game is an incredibly fun bunch of characters that somehow are even more likable then the P4 cast(And P4's cast is awesome mind you), the antagonists are a bunch of complete assholes and a bit over the top but I won't lie how satisfying it was to topple all of them across the board. The side activities are fun, building those social links are fun, the locations across Japan are fantastic, the game is downright gorgeous.

I know you know how much I stan for FFVII on these forums over the decades, I beat FFVII remake 3 times, I beat Persona 5 6 times, that's how much I loved P5. lol

I think P4 Golden is the best place to start the series. It would be criminal if you played P5 and then went back to 4 and looked down on it because it's not as insanely good as P5 is, because again P4 is still really good. Playing P3 kinda follows the same logic where if you play 4/5 3 isn't as good in comparison, but you're not missing out on as much imo if you start with 4. If you do play 4 I recommend playing Hard(not very hard) as Very hard nerfs the gil/exp gains, they didn't fix the hardest difficulty causing more grinding until P5Royal.

[Julius Seeker]

Thanks! That’s a super helpful post. I found the Vita game I had, Persona 4 Golden. Factory sealed so I think I’ll just hold onto it since this game is going for 190 bucks on EBay.